Stroke n Stride

After last week's Stroke n Stride I wrote "Next time, I’m breaking 25:00 on the run." Damn right. I didn't break it by much, but 24:54 is definitely sub-25. It's also a new SnS 5k PR (formerly 25:05 after a 750) and took almost a minute off my previous best after a 1500 (25:45). My swim wasn't quite as good as last week's but it seemed like there was a LOT of wake-related chop on the water. I also got well off course a couple times.
Still, I felt good coming out of the water and just as I went to stand up,wham!, charlie horse in my right calf. Not happy. I limped a bit coming out of the water and fortunately it seemed to loosen up really fast. I took my time in transition (0:21 slower than last week) though largely because I had trouble getting my wetsuit off, and booked it out onto the run with good old Mr Bleep Bleep.

Side Story: a couple weeks ago, mark had a bunch of his athletes meet him at a trail to go over running form and cadence. I think I mentioned it briefly here, but I'm pretty sure I didn't mention Mr Bleep Bleep. Mr Bleep Bleep is what I call the tempo trainer that Mark has had us use for cadence (180 strides per minute). Mark called it Mr Beep Beep, but when you've got this thing beeping at you 3 times a second, every second... you eventually end up cursing it. Especially if you carry it on a long run. It certainly helps with the cadence, but it really drives you batty.

So I hit the run and was able to find a comfortable stride and pace pretty quickly. I got the first mile done in 8:08 and the second in 8:09. The last mile was brutal, especially the little uphill from the levee to the boats, ugh, and as the finish line came in sight, I saw I had 0:35 to get there under my 25:00 goal. my spirits dipped a bit briefly as I figured I wasn't going to be able to cross the needed distance in 35 seconds... but then i told myself "Well, I sure as hell won't make it if I don't try!" grit my teeth and went for it. I didn't think I was going to make it as I approached the line, but sometimes that whole feeling of time slowing down can actually work in your favor and when I checked my watch, sure enough, sub 25.

My overall time was 1:02:54 and I'd love to shave those 3 minutes off to get under an hour for the whole race, but that's a lot of time to trim with just one race left and it being the Thursday before the 5430 Long Course. I don't know what Mark will have me doing that day, but I have a suspicion I won't be trying to close the gap on a 1 hour SnS.