Prospect Park Track Club 5M Turkey Trot

Ah, the five-miler… the only race distance in which I lacked a 2014 PR.  Kind of difficult to PR in a distance you haven’t actually run.  Generally speaking, I only do one of these a year — this one.  Recently, however, I’ve been ruing that, as missing a PR here would mean 2014 was a total waste.  I had two goals this year — stay healthy, and PR in every distance.  The first one was obviously a big fat fail, so I needed this PR, even though it seemed pretty unlikely.  I mean, last week was my first speed session since July.  And my knee (knees, now)… still giving me endless grief.  So, yeah.  This is going to be fun.

Let’s not forget all the hysteria about the weather — the supposed 3-6″ of snow?  Not going to help matters!  I wanted to wear the Go Run 3, but I was iffy about the traction (even though it turned out I didn’t need to worry much aside from some wet leaves) so I went with the tried-and-true Connect 2s instead.  Although — it flurried during the race.  Snow?!  What is this crap?!

Originally, I wanted to run this at an official average pace of 7:17.  Only because in 2012 my average pace was 7:57, and in 2013 it was 7:37, and I like it when things line up that way.  But having lost months of what could have been valuable training to injury, I would settle for a PR, no matter how small — so 38:02 or faster.  End of story.

Last year, for some reason, my watch measured 4.95 miles.  I was hoping I might get lucky again, but to hedge my bets I figured I’d try to aim for a 7:30 pace… the bonus here is that it’s fairly easy to calculate where I should be at each mile marker!  7:30, 15:00, 22:30, 30:00, 37:30.

Every year, I move up closer to the front, which is ridiculous, because I don’t finish that high up … but I still spend the first quarter mile weaving around people.  It is so incredibly frustrating!  Still, I did stick pretty close to goal pace for the first mile.  Slowed down a bit in the next two, but I think that happens every year due to the course topography, and I make it up in the last two miles, so I wasn’t that worried.

I’d have liked the splits to be more consistent, but this is apparently the way it goes here (see below).  As long as the end goal is achieved, I won’t really complain.

As for the knees… oh, the knees.  It was really only a matter of time before my right knee started to whine about doing the work of two knees, and of course that would have happened a couple of days ago.  It’s weird — it’s in the spot where I feel it with ITBS, but it doesn’t quite feel like that.  I don’t know.  My issue now is that the left knee should be resolving since I’m getting Supartz injections, but I think that’s causing another problem.  When I got the MRI on that knee, I learned that I have a small popliteal cyst.  It’s been asymptomatic, so I didn’t really care much … but halfway through the race today, I felt a weird twinging sensation behind my knee (AKA, where said cyst would be found).  In that second, it was so bad that I seriously thought I’d have to drop out, but it kind of faded away into the background after that — I was aware of it, but nothing more than that.

Except.  It still hurts now.  I’m wondering if maybe all that extra fluid from the Supartz is making the cyst worse — does that even make sense??  Could that fluid have found its way into there?!  I really hope that isn’t what’s happening, because then we have a problem.  If the Supartz helps the PFPS but makes the cyst hurt, what’s the point?  Guess I will be putting in a call to the doctor tomorrow.

Back to this race — my Garmin did not measure short.  5.02 miles in 37:54, 7:33/mi.  Official results: 5 miles in 37:52, 7:34/mi.  171/2279 OA, 35/1323 F, and 6/289 F 30-34… and a PR by eleven whole seconds.  Still, that’s enough to play the McMillan prediction game, right?  Haven’t done that in a while!

1mi — 6:34.7
5K — 22:50 (7:21/mi)
4mi — 29:41 (7:25/mi)
10K — 47:26 (7:38/mi)
10mi — 1:19:16 (7:56/mi)
HM — 1:45:44 (8:04/mi)
FM — 3:42:31 (8:30/mi)

Hey, that’s not bad… I’m pretty close to all of those.  Except for the half, which I’ve already beaten, and the marathon, because, well, that didn’t go quite according to plan.  But I could probably get close if I managed to get through a training cycle and the race without falling apart.  Ha ha ha ha ha!

Anyway, I’m obviously a little biased, but I kind of loved this race.  Because PPTC is awesome.  Duh.

TERRIBLE POSTURE.