Yesterday I (and Jeff) raced the Rothman 8k in Philly. Here’s how the race went.

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I was hoping for roughly 5:40 pace. My first mile was 5:20. Shit. I kept thinking to myself “Am I accidentally running 5k pace even though this is an 8k? Am I in huge trouble?“

The next mile was 5:30 and I still felt okay. But at about 2.5 I thought to myself “If this was a 5k, could I kick this last half mile? I don’t think I could...”

Mile three was about 5:40 and I could tell I was in ‘hold on for deal life‘ mode. 10 minutes. That’s all I had to get through. 10 more minutes.

When I got to the fourth mile I was already pretty much maxed out- cramping hard, grunting a lot, breaking form. It was ugly. If I could muster up a 5:40 (.97, not even a full mile) I’d break 28:00, but I knew that was long shot.

The last mile was a death march. I crossed in 28:07 and was happy to only slow down as much as I did. I had sub 28:00 in my legs if I ran smarter.

Jeff’s training didn’t go as planned and he crossed in 30:48. According to Willy he has to jump into the Schuylkill river. Shoutout to Willy for aiming to break 40 and finishing in 37 and Julia for running her first race.

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28:07 isn’t breaking any records, but leading up to the race I’d had the most consistent eight weeks of training that I’ve had in three years. Running slow has enabled my Achilles to hold up.

I averaged 30-35 MPW and did three workouts total: a 3 x mile, a 3 mile tempo, and a 6 x 2:00 fartlek. Every other run was 7:30-8:30 pace. If I can run 28 minutes off of that, I have to think there’s more there if I can get in a few more workouts and a few more miles.

Maybe, just maybe, 2022 will be the comeback year that I’ve been hyping up since 2017.