Cherry Blossoms is Falling

I am not entirely sure why the good people at Prospect Park Track Club calls this 10M race “Cherry Tree 10M” because it’s not exactly Cherry blossom season (February 17) and I did not see any Cherry Trees on the course.  I presume it’s called Cherry Tree because it’s on President’s Day weekend, and President George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and tried to lie about it in his youth/myth.

I’d like to think that it’s an homage to this – but that’s just me.

Training for the week of February 11-17 was pretty easy.  First, the Faster Finish class was a classy Caterpillar Run.  Coach Terry was away on a secret covert mission somewhere, so we got a guy with a mop head and a “yogurt voice”.  He was nice and funny but was no Terry.

My second key workout was 30 second sprints + 30 seconds recovery up and down Cat Hill.  I can’t make any sense of the splits, but I’d like to think that I did OK.

Sunday was this “Cherry Tree 10M” that my training partner signed me up for.  While the temperatures were not too cold, the wind was CRAZY.  The race itself isn’t too hard.  Just 3 laps of Prospect Park in Brooklyn.  This makes for an interesting course, where there is basically ONE GIANT HILL every mile and a quarter or so.  Instructions form Coach Terry was “negative split each loop”. 

Well.  This instructions went right out the window as I started running.  First 1M clocked in at 8:12 pace, due to a nice gradual down hill and some good tail wind.  First round of the “hill” went fine as I rode the wind…this is a technique I created in my second marathon that also had 20mph winds.  More on this later.  So by the time first loop ended, I had no hopes of beating it. LOL.  From there on, I decided to just run it as a supported long run (I had ran 5M before hand).  I suffered from a stitch from mile 6 to about 8, and also faced some serious headwind on hill climb #2.  Due to the stitch, I couldn’t exactly “ride the wind” this time.  Not sure what I did, but my Garmin shows a deficit of 0.10 mile. I ended up with a 7:56 pace run and came in 9^th in my Age Group. 

“Riding the Wind”

I am not sure if this is some official technique, but when there is a severe head wind, instead of banging up into it, I like to lean quite a bit forward.  Like almost 45 degree angle from the hip up.  I also spread my arms a little wider, so that while still swinging it, I imagine myself as a skydiver.  When the wind is strong enough, this creates my upper body to be supported by the wind, I seem to get some kind of aerodynamic thing going, and I end up going faster with much less effort.  I just “fall into” the wind and let my legs just kick me forward.  I do feel like I’m flying when I succeed.  8:03 pace up for an elevation gain of 94 feet is pretty impressive for me.

New Book

After not being able to lose much weight, I finally fell for Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald.  The thing is…it’s not anything I don’t know.  Quality carbs, sensible diet, low fat protein, correct portions.  Hmph.