Round 1 of the Cap10K team tryouts for my company’s competitive team were today.  Originally everything was set for March 2nd, but I opted to run today when an earlier date was offered to accommodate another runner who would be out of town in March.  As I mentioned, I chose today because I thought it would give me a better chance than after running a marathon.  The question is, how’d it go?

Foreshadowing

Starting at 7am the organizer, Gerardo, and I started our 2-mile warm up.  After getting blocked by literally the longest train in the universe we made it to the gravel loop.  The time trial was set as 6 laps of this 0.57 mile loop for a total of 3.42 miles (just over a 5K).  The organizer, who will be trying out on March 2nd, drew a line in the dirt as the start/finish line, made sure we were warmed up, and said he’d hop in and out with us to get his own speed work.  With a quick “Set, Go” we were off.

Quick reference: Gerardo is fast like whoa, as in he qualified* for Boston a few months ago.  I wasn’t fooling myself that I’d be able to hang with him.  My goal was to put down a respectable time but let Gerardo do his own thing and I do mine.  The first lap was too fast, and the beginning of the end.  Within the first minute of the second lap I knew I didn’t have it in me to hang on at this pace for 6 laps.  I tried slowing it down a little, but I think I had already started the nosedive.

The third lap, a little slower than the second, was still decent.  Beginning the fourth lap and starting the second half of the run, I was hurting.  Although my lap paces were solid at the start and slowly declined, the wheels really fell off as I rounded the first corner of the fourth lap.  At that point I shut it down.  It wasn’t my day.  I coasted around the fourth and fifth laps and opted to not even jog the final lap.

Even if I could have pushed through, which I don’t think I could after the crash-and-burn pace, with the marathon this weekend, it wouldn’t have been worth it.  The time gained (or really, salvaged) wouldn’t have been enough to really keep me in contention anyway.  The organizer offered that I could try again on March 2nd, so I’m considering that now.  It will all depend on how I’m feeling post-marathon.

For the 2.8-ish miles that I ran, it was at an average 6:28 min/mile.  To do all 6 laps at that average pace would have given me a finish time around 22:07, and the bar is really set around 20:00 minutes.

And that’s the scoop.  It wasn’t in the cards today, but I’m ok with that.  I didn’t put the work in for a speedy day, and shouldn’t have expected anything more than how things played out.  If I do try again on March 2nd I’ll definitely rethink my pacing.

*Well, if they didn’t change the standards.  Now he’s SOL and need to run even faster to qualify.

Splits if you’re interested: