15k Abierta al Mar: 1:13:17

On Sunday ( I write this on Saturday of next week) I raced the 15k Abierta al mar here in Valencia. This was a race that I have in sight from the beginning of the year, I just liked the course, I have missed the half maratón which is run in the city, so I wanted to run a " long" race in the city. The course was great and the weather was great also. The support in the streets was not so great, very few people encouraging, as opposed to the half maratón where my brother told that every corner of both sides of the streets are full of people cheering you on. This was not the case, but anyway, I enjoyed this race a lot and was very satisfied with the result.

I woke up at 6:30 a.m. and inmedately  ate a peanut butter sándwich, I was not hungry at all and even I forced it down, but I knew that I need that energy, especially after the 10k, so I ate it. It seems that it worked because I felt strong throughout and I never experience what they call " the Wall". Even my 5k splits were very even and I even negative Split.

I met my brother on my way to the race, I got there walking, then I did a easy warm up, no strides today, since I just wanted to do something as a warm up and to find the pace during the race, meaning that the first km of the race or so would be my warm up. Jogging back and forth, I think I ran about 1 mile of warm up. Then entered the corrals with 20+ mins to go.

I race without a watch so I was just looking at other people`s watch to know how much until the gun time. Finally we were off and I went out very relaxed and the pace felt very easy, but I just saw the 4:30 per km right ahead of me in the first 300-400s so I dialed back a bit, a lot of people started to passing me, but that was the case throughout the race. I just let my own body find its pace. In the first 2 kms I felt really Good and could talk confortably. I knew that I was at my goal pace because I never saw the 5:00 per km pacer passed me, so I told to myself in the whole race, as long as that pacer dont pass you you are own pace, luckily that never happened and I surprised myself with 73:17. In the first 3k I still felt very relaxed, miss the 4k and when I crossed the 5k, first wáter station and first Split mat, I forced myself to increase a bit the effort at least to maintain the pace. In the 8k I felt Good and I wanted to accelerate, but hold myself back, telling myself that if in the last 5k you have something, use it the, 8k is still too early and luckily I did that. When I crossed the 10k, the plas was to accelerate because I felt excellent aerobically, but after the 10k my legs got heavier and heavier and I just could maintain pace, increasing effort to maintain pace. I n the 11k a couple of guys passed me and I tried mybest to not lose contact, but the pace that they were running was much faster. We passed the 12k and I just wanted to get this thing done. Then  when we were in the maritime path you can smell the finish with 1 mile to go, at that point I decided to give what I have left. The last km is all straight and you can see the finish line in the distance, but if you sprint ahead of time you could burn yourself out, so I waited until I could see the finish clock clearly and it was time to sprint. I passed a big group and saw my brother that gave me a hi5, I knew that would run 73 mins I was very happy. I felt awesome when I finished. I felt very strong, but my legs would not go any faster, but I could talk the whole race without problems, I even encouraged some runners that were clearly fading. However, I Will try to go with a more agressive attitude in the 5k, concentrating in my own race and spending my energy as Smart as posible.

The oficial results presented splits every 5 kms, mine were :24:46 , 24:18, 24:22, so as you can see they were pretty even. I think the first Split include the seconds you were back when the gun went off, because I dont think my pace change much from the first 5k to the second 5k. I was just only 10 seconds back when the gun went off.  Very happy with the way I ran this race, and as you can see it was not far off than my current 5k tempos were I am running 23 highs on the 6k 2 weeks prior I ran what I ran here, I did it in a 6k tempo run huffing and puffing and in this race I was not even breathing hard. I dont know the reason, if I taper the same way for my races and workouts, the reason could be that I train alone 99 percent of the time and when its race time you have hundreds of people and the pace feels way easier than in training, so I use that for my advantage.  I think that if I have worn a watch I would have panicked seeing that I was running at my 5-6k tempos for more than doble the distance. Its Good to race by feel.

I think that the long runs with the progression finish where a big confidence booster as well, I was runninng 5:07 per km at the end of my long runs very easy and the day after my tempo workout, so I was teaching my body to run at a decent pace when tired. Is not optimal to do a progression long right the day after a key workout, but thats how I can structure my week, since I take advantage of weekends where I could run for more time and recover better.

I wanted to do a short cool down, but my cool down was a long walk to home 30-40 mins. I knew that I was going to be very sore for the next several days, because right after the race my quads were burning! Eventhough I am happy with my result, I am kind of dissapointed at the same time. The level here in Valencia is amazing, the time that I ran only put myself in the 1100th pace out of around 6000, I finished in a parade. The weather was 12 Celsius. My PR was run 11 years ago 72:03 and maybe 32 Celius there in the Dominican Republic, which is not the same. I would like to run again there and really compare my current fitness, but running in the caribbean where the temps rise above 30 and the humidity is 90 percent. Even if I run a PR ( like I did in the half maratón), it wont be legit until I run it in the same conditions that were run my PR`s.