The official race date was a week or two prior, but I ran this official course as part of my coronavirus-era series of “races” to keep myself training hard and racing regularly. Almost as sad as the fact that these terrible times call for such a strategy is the fact that my abilities continue to decline. If 2019 began the slide from peak performance, 2020 has sealed the deal with an exponential decrease.
This is a stone cold fact that you never read in any running book or article: When it comes to speed and stamina, you lose it much more quickly than you attain it.
I have been running for 15 years. It took me 11 years to get to peak speed. I maintained it, with some minor fluctuations, for about two years. And in the last two years, I have already dropped to almost the levels at which I started. That is a brutal blow to the psyche; a bruise on the ego.
But let us get to the matter at hand – the 15K in Basking Ridge (where Phish's Page McConnell spent his childhood!). My last 15K was on the hills of Block Island in 2016, where I inexplicably, unbelievably achieved a PR of 58:22. Less than four years hence, on a mostly flat course, I could not even come close.
Starting at the official line, spray-painted on the pavement, I headed east on Lord Stirling Road. The first mile was great (6:18) thanks to an early downhill. Having rested the day before, my legs felt fresh. I was glad I had studied the course map, because the first turn was on Carlton Road which has no street sign. Thankfully, though, the turnaround point on that road was spray-painted on the pavement.
I hit mile two with a more realistic (though slightly disappointing) 6:33. But I figured that was a good place to be this early on in the race, knowing that for a 15K, it is important to keep some gas in the tank.
Before turning onto Lord Stirling again to continue eastbound and hitting the mile 3 mark (6:30), a fellow on a bicycle (there were a lot of those out there that morning) passed me and said, “That’s quite an aggressive pace you’ve got going.”
I wanted to be able to explain that I was trying my best to run races while there were no actual races happening and that this was one of the courses, all I could muster was, “Thanks.”
Still, if I could have stayed in that 6:30 range, I would have been happy, all things considered. But by the time I made it to the mile 4 mark (6:44) on Pleasant Plains Road, I could feel it all unraveling. It was getting warmer – sunny and approaching 70F – and I was getting fatigued already. I was not even halfway finished. I had to press on, though. I had no choice – this was a race, after all.
After another well-marked turnaround I hit mile 5 (6:47) before turning eastward again on Lord Stirling. With each successively slower mile, I was calculating in my head how much slower my overall pace was, and it was not making me happy. I simply had to push harder.
For a little while, it worked. I hit the mile 6 mark with a 6:40 before the final turnaround that would send me back west on Lord Stirling with a straight stretch to the finish line for the final 5K. I just had to keep pushing.
There was almost nothing left, though. I gave it whatever I could - using every ounce of energy, trying to extend my legs as far as they would go – and I still came up with only 6:54 in both mile 7 and mile 8. With a little more than a mile to go, I let it out whatever was left and managed a 6:39 in mile 9.
If that was the end of the race, my average pace would have been 6:39. Nothing about which to write home, but understandable with the way things have been going. But in that extra third of a mile at the end, I had to run up that hill that I went down at the beginning of the race. It took me 2:42 to go that last three-tenths of a mile. That is a 9:00 pace. It was excruciating.
With a 1:02:23 final time, it was my slowest 15K with the exception of my first one in 2006 (1:09:38). Since my second one was in 2009, with a 1:00:46, this means my ability has dropped to that of more than 11 years ago. That is 11 years of improvement lost in only four years time – and not for lack of training, either. I have been training exactly as much and as hard, only to see myself deteriorate rapidly.
It is frustrating and, like I said, it is something you never hear about. Even with no major injury and no change in training, it all just falls apart when you get old enough.
But does this mean I am giving up? Not a chance. July is half-marathon time.
No comments:
Post a Comment