Canal Connection
Utica, IL
November 3rd, 2013
6.2 miles - 38:14
18th place overall; 1st place age group
The
weekend started out with a trip to Indianapolis for the Indy Monumental
Half Marathon. I rode over with my friend Andy Williams who had been
training for this race most of the season. From the start of the drive
over to Indy I was beginning to become hesitant in participating in the
race. I knew that I really wanted to perform well at Canal Connection
but I had already paid for the Indy Half (back in December 2012). As I
was going through the thought process it came down to three scenarios:
1.) I jog the half marathon and show up to canal connection with semi dead legs and kick myself for doing it.
2.) Race the half marathon and come to Canal Connection as a spectator/volunteer.
3.) Watch the half marathon and come to Canal Connection relatively fresh and ready to race
I
had come to the conclusion that since I was at Indy I would choose
option 2; run a hard half and try to pr that distance. I told Andy this
and the look on his face said everything. The history of Andy and I
racing together is this: Every time we run together at a race, he
inevitably has a horrible race. I don't know if he pushes himself too
hard in the beginning or psyches himself out mentally. So when I saw
that he was pretty down trodden about my decision, I made the decision
race morning to forgo the half and sit on the sidelines with his wife
and a cup of coffee. In the end he had the best race of the year (Half
marathon PR by 2 minutes).
CANAL CONNECTION
Having
skipped the half marathon I entered canal connection feeling pretty
good. I decided to continue my streak of running without a watch since
it proved at Allerton park to be very beneficial. The racers lined up on
the start line. I, along with Ryan Case, looked around at the people
that were jockeying for a spot at the front of the start line. It was a
little baffling to see a lot of what I would consider "non racers" at
the front of the line. My guess is that this has everything to do with
the race not being chip timed. As we took off down the hill and past the
first mile marker I was feeling pretty good. I hit the first mile at
5:45 which wasn't too much of an issue. It was downhill; surely that
wasn't too fast. An uneventful second mile turned over at 11:48. Another
sub 6 minute mile and I was getting a little worried at the pace. Mile 3
clicked off at 17/18 minutes. At this point I was really starting to
regret the pace. When I hit mile 4 at 24:03 I knew that the rest of the
race was just going to be about holding on. There was a tight group of 4
of us at this point. Myself, Guillaume "The Frenchman", and two other
runners. One of them was an older gentleman and he was breathing like a
horse. I was a head of this horse guy through mile 5 (31 minutes) but
his breathing was starting to get to me mentally. At about the 5.5 mile
mark I let him overtake me b/c I knew I couldn't out gun him and I knew I
couldn't listen to him breath anymore. I maintained pace through the
finish and crossed the line with a PR of over 1 minute.
As
it turns out, I have a decent amount of instinct when it comes to
pacing on trails; not so much when it comes to road racing. Perhaps
wearing a watch would have been a good idea. At the end of the day, I
pr'd my 5k, 4mile, 5 mile, and 10k time. All in all a successful race
regardless of how bad I paced it.
My
recent dietary changes have been yielding positive results. On normal
days I don't take in any real carbohydrates until dinner time. My diet
has been roughly:
Breakfast: 3 eggs, 1 cup egg whites, 1 chicken
sausage. Cooked in coconut oil. Coffee with unsweetened almond milk and a
couple tablespoons of full fat coconut milk
Lunch: 4-6 oz of meat, salad or veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts) topped with olive oil or avocado
Snack: Serving of almonds or some Bacon Jerky
Dinner: Lean protein source (white fish, shrimp, chicken, lean steak) and a large sweet potato.
It
seems that backloading my carbs and keeping fat intake low(er) at night
has been helping my sleep. I've increased my calorie consumption from
2k to closer to 3k and that seems to have increased muscle tone. These
zero carb high fat breakfasts also seem to be making my mental acuity
much sharper instead of the typical carb coma.
The only
difference on race day is that I down a large sweet potato in the
morning and the evening and keep the meals inbetween LCHF. All in all it
seems to be working for now. I'll keep this up for a month and see how
it plays out. Despite the increase in calories i weighed in at my lowest
this morning at 168.2 lbs.
