USA Outdoors

My first US National Championships—a time to line up against guys I had competed against during college, guys I’ve watched at world championships, and even guys for whom I’ve stood in line for an autograph (mainly Bernard Lagat)!  And even coming out of the race with a 10^th place showing and a new PR of 13:41 (formerly 13:44 from 2011), I must admit disappointment, but only the most disappointment one is allowed when setting a new PR.  Of course I’m thrilled to finally knock a few seconds off my 5k time after three years of injury and frustration, stoked to have competed and placed top 10 in a national championship, but it was the story line that unfolded during the race rather than the results which is the root of my dismay. A video of the race can be found here.

At no point during the race did I feel that I was in the race.  The entirety of the race from my perspective was just hanging on by a thread to the lead pack which surged and slowed in the mildly windy conditions and relatively slow first half.  With each ebb and flow propagating and exaggerating itself throughout the bulk of the pack, I was caught on the tail end of the accordion, fighting on each backstretch to keep contact and finding myself backing off the gas on the homestretch.

As the race began to pick up the last mile, I was able to consciously make moves around those who were dropping off, but I never really felt like a competitor in the lead pack—and it is in that where I find my greatest disappointment.

Coming into race week, my legs had been feeling pretty fatigued from the intensity of our training and I was without much of an explanation as to why I was so energy poor.  My best guess is cumulative training fatigue in combination with the illness my body had to fight last week which left me searching for that “pop and spring” so desperately desired during race week.  As my college coach pointed out in an encouraging email to me, “If you run a PR when everything is perfect, that is to be expected.  If you run a PR when things aren’t quite right, that is a much better accomplishment.”

Yet with all that being said, as my close friend Ricky Lupp reminded me in a phone call the afternoon of the race, “It’s crazy to think that on Jan 1 you weren’t even running, and now you’re in the national championships.”  And more truthfully is that my training didn’t resume until March 1.  My coach, Dennis Barker, remarked after the race that two months ago if he had proposed I could be 10^th at the national championships, I would have told him to stop dreaming.

If anything, I feel that this performance is an encouraging introduction to the runner I can blossom to be under the careful guidance of Dennis, the support of Team USA Minnesota, and the support of Saucony.  Now that Dennis and I have begun to figure each other out with the coach/athlete relationship and have been in a training good rhythm for four months to bring me to a new 5k PR, I am supremely confident that with additional consistent training under his tutelage that some very exciting things can happen.

And I’m excited to announce here that I will be taking off for a series of track races in Europe tomorrow!  I will be traveling with my teammate, Jon Peterson, and we will be competing in the following meets:

7/5 - 3000m at Memorial Leon Buyle Meeting in Oordegem, Belgium

7/13 – Mile at Letterkenny AC Meeting in Letterkenny, Ireland

7/19 – 5000m at KBC Nacht Meeting in Heusden, Netherlands

I will be doing my best to update my blog during my travels and give race reports for the next month!

Results:

1 Bernard Lagat Nike 13:31.41
2 Andrew Bumbalough Nike / Bowerman Track Club 13:32.01
3 Hassan Mead Nike / Oregon TC Elite 13:32.42
4 Ryan Hill Nike / Bowerman Track Club 13:32.82
5 David Torrence Nike 13:34.95
6 Trevor Dunbar Oregon 13:34.96
7 Joe Bosshard Colorado 13:38.19
8 Jonathan Peterson Team USA Minnesota 13:39.51
9 Tyler Pennel Reebok / ZAP Fitness Reebok 13:40.49
10 Eric Finan Team USA Minnesota 13:41.33
11 Joe Stilin ZAP Fitness Reebok 13:48.05
12 Daniel Quigley Nike / Oregon TC Elite 13:52.86
13 Brendan Gregg Hansons-Brooks Distance Projec 13:56.18
14 Scott Dahlberg Boulder Running Company/adidas 14:01.87
15 Sean Keveren Unattached 14:07.95
16 Lex Williams Unattached 14:11.73
DNF Erik Olson Stanford