Wow what a race yesterday, let me tell you all a little about it. Got there in nice time, perfect time to do my 20 minute warmup of drills. I've been tweaking and polishing this routine for 5-6 weeks and now it goes really smoothly, and I absolutely love it. Much more then what I would do in the past which was pretty much just running ABCs, and some hamstring swings. This one really gets every single muscle group in the thighs, hips, lower legs (including tibialis anterior which in the past can sometimes fatigue on me when I'm in my flats), and even the feet. The warmup could actually be a good workout in itself as you work up a pretty good sweat in the process. I could tell pretty quickly that besides Tyler, another competitor invited to the event to try to break my course record from last year (he had come second at the Mississauga Half Marathon 7 weeks ago), and another guy which looked scarily similar to Lionel Sanders with his muscles, it wasn't, but yes I walked up beside him to see if he had a tattoo on his arm to make sure it wasn't Lionel, this was going to be a two-man race since I was really the only person of 1500 competitors warming up (btw sorry for the long run-on sentence). My word of wisdom to those mid-pack runners out there, or even back-of the pack weekend warriors, do a proper warmup before your races it will really make a huge difference in your stride's form and snappiness, and your finishing time in the end. If not don't complain at 6k or so that you leg's are tightening up because it's your own doing.
So after a solid warmup over to the start line looking smart in my amazing new racing kit including an awesome Nike singlet, and brand new Nike Zoom Streak LT2 racing flats - the newest edition to my shoe family and the lightest by quite a bit. Normally, I wouldn't recommend to other runners out there to race in a brand new shoe literally right out of the box, as these were purchased just the night before the race. But then again this is a no-nonsense racing flat that probably doesn't require much break-in period anyways since it is essentially a very thin sheet of material to cover you feet and the thinnest, smallest piece of foam as the midsole. So really there isn't a whole lot of midsole and bunches of EVA that really needs to be broken in anyways. These nimble shoes weigh in at just 5 oz which to put into perspective, for a shoe that a wide range of people can relate too even though I don't really consider it a true running shoe, is anywhere from 2.5-3.3 oz lighter than Nike Frees depending on whether you wear the 3.0-5.0 varieties. More importantly, these shoes are 2.8 oz lighter than my Adidas Adios Boost racing flats which come in at 7.8 oz. For those thinking 2.8 isn't much think about the overall weight of the shoe, if the shoe only weighs 5 oz and the other is 7.8 oz that is more than 50% heavier. Plus according to the most recent lab studies every oz lighter a shoe is equates to roughly 3 seconds per kilometer faster. So let's do the math, if this shoe is 2.8 oz lighter than the adios (round to 3 to make things simpler), than the streak Lt2 is 9 s/km faster. Let me put this another way if that doesn't sound significant to you, 9 s/km faster is equivalent to 3 min and 9 seconds over the distance of a half marathon - which yes is significant. Getting back to the story, the reason I decided to go with a shoe other than the adidas adios boost goes back quite a bit. First off, if you remember I was not 100% sold on the adios 2.0 going into the Scotiabank Marathon last October, I even wrote a whole blog post pretty much dedicated to the issue. Problem was that after running in the original green Adidas Adios - of which were a feature to a poem I wrote last August or so on the beauty of running two-a-days, the 2.0 didn't have quite the same feel. They were somewhat clunky, and noisy hitting the ground. The original adios fit like a glove, the upper was simple and comfortable. Then with the 2.0 they changed the upper of the pedigreed shoe that smashed the world record on multiple occasions, to one that for some reason had more overlays, a thin plastic heel counter, and a small piece of plastic on the medial-posterior arch that seemed to me like a whole bunch of useless weight. I believe why adidas chose these components is quite obvious. Here how I think that story goes:
Original, light, simple, and bright Adios smashes the world record on multiple occasions by the world's greatest runner of all-time Haile Gebrasallasie. Average runners see this and wonder what shoes Haile is wearing, and want them for themselves. Adidas reacts and says, well the everyday run of the mill Joe Blow can't run in a shoe as simple and lightweight as Haile, who ran barefoot for the first couple decades of his life, westerners require chunks of plastic and highly engineered stitched overlays to keep there pathetically weak feet from disaster. Let's release the adios 2.0 sell it for more the original, and market it as the world's fastest shoe even though it is completely different from the original, but now accessible to the everyday runner. Brilliant.
So to keep things somewhat short, they royally messed up a perfect racing flat with the adios 2.0. Yet, it still served as a good option since despite completely messing up the upper, the outsole was still unparalleled with the continental rubber. From there adidas released the adios boost, taking the same upper pretty much from the 2.0 adding more plastic stuff for some reason, and replacing the midsole with boost technology. Now the shoe was officially destroyed. The boost completely changed the responsiveness of the shoe, in that there really isn't any, now you try to push the pace in the shoe and no matter how much you push into the ground the shoe is still just squishing along in the same manner. It has brutal responsiveness, not to mention being ridiculously heavy for a racing flat, and really just feels separate from your foot. So after a hard workout called the Lumberjack Workout from NAU which is 5X400, then 4k tempo, 5x400 (5k pace), 4k tempo, 5X400 (10k pace) in the adios boost I decided my eight year long relationship of racing in nothing but adidas was over. The shoe felt like garbage, and I wanted something different. So to make a really long side-story short, went with the Streak LT2 which is great for any surface including cross country, gravel, grass, road, and even rubber.
Back to the race. Waiting around at the start line just before the race I was feeling very nervous. Not really sure why but my heart was already racing. Maybe it was the pressure I had put on myself to set a PB, or that I had been thinking and rehearsing this race in my mind while out on the roads/mountains in Park City, Utah for so long now. My gameplan that I had thought about was to run the first 5k with the lead pack of runners then at around 5k where I remember there being a good sized hill put on an early move and leave the pack in the dust. Basically use my hill climbing prowess that I gained running up the mountains in Park City to gap my competitors on a comparatively tiny incline in Barrie. Well, strategies are always good to have going into the race, but sometimes you just have to roll with what is given to you on the day and trash your plan. Essentially, about 35 maybe even less meters after the gun sounded I was out on my own. Going at 2:40 pace for the opening minute and a half I built an already sizeable gap, and felt quite comfortable. I wasn't going to hold back and run a loping 3:30/km pace just to run with a couple people after all that training. If nobody decided to come up with me so be it, I'll take control and run my own race. A little disappointing that Tyler or any of the other competitors couldn't stay with me and push me along for any of the race, but then again I do believe that on this day and after 800k put in at 7000ft and above I was at a different level than anyone and would have taken control and dominated anyone on this day. After a 3:07 opening kilometer, then 3:17, and 3:18 to follow I was quickly in rhythm, by roughly this point I stopped thinking about anyone potentially behind me, and just decided to focus ahead at the lead bike about 30 meters or so ahead. At 5k approached one of the bigger hills on the course and galloped up it like nothing really happened putting in a 3:22 kilometer. Hit the 5k mark in 16:26. Would have liked to have taken the turnaround pylon at 6k a little smoother, but after accelerating out of the turn looked up and didn't see anyone coming towards the turn around for a while. After finally seeing 2nd place, and then 3rd a little later, then the masses started coming, and after waving to first couple, stopped and focused ahead back on the lead bike, and went into what I've referred to in the past as trance mode and felt unstoppable. The oxygen was flooding into my body, and really I felt like my legs were just on autopilot, turning over faster and faster without straining too hard. Really I kept looking at my watch and the effort level and pace didn't really match. If I saw my pace drop to 3:25 which was a little faster than my former personal best pace at the half, I just simply quickened the cadence slightly and was back at 3:20 without killing myself. Not to say I was just chilling out there, after a 3:17 9th kilometer there was one more hill at 10k which did sting a little and really slowed that split to 3:29 (10k mark in 33:25), but recovered with a 3:20 and 3:22 on 11 and 12. After passing to the right of the finishing chute to start the final 4k out and 4k back on the gravel section of the course the lead cyclist made a wrong turn and cost me about 10-15 seconds. Onto the gravel section which even though it is clearly slower than the road, which I could tell by the fact that at the same pace I had to increase my effort level, my legs will always welcome a softer surface. 13-16k went smoothly, it was heating up a bit but my legs still felt full of running. At 17k don't really know what happened but after the final hill of the course I got a little out of rhythm, lost a little focus, and had a slow 3:32 km split. But on the final 4k of the race, I have never felt better during the latter part of a race. The final four splits were 3:20, 3:20, 3:20 and then 3:17. Really the last 4k my legs felt beastly and I could accelerate faster and faster. In fact in the finishing chute I hit a speed of 27 km/hr. Clocked in at 1:11:03 smashing my PB by 1 minute and 19 seconds, plus had I not made that wrong turn wasting some time would have been even quicker. I did what I said earlier in the month and dismantled any competition winning by 6 minutes, and beat my course record from last year by 3 minutes. Had this race been on the all pavement all downhill Mississauga Half I believe I would have been 1:08:30-45 - based on the fact that after last year coming into Barrie in great shape my time was 2 minutes slower than Mississauga so those 2 minutes are due to the course. Regardless, for me this was the most flawless race I've ran with my legs really feeling amazing throughout. From here onto the Peachbud 10k on Tuesday Night. The last couple days here post race my right calf has been pretty sore, I'm guessing from racing in 5k racing flats for a half marathon, but I'll still look to set another PB assuming the weather holds off (calling for some storms). Until next time, happy running.
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