Nielson Challenge Record Broken

Well,
The record went down in a big way this weekend!!!! As many people know, a group of local runners here in the springs set out to break the 10 minute time at the 2 mile Nielson Challenge. Only one person had come close to getting under 10 minutes (Justin Chaston) so we decided it was time to go for attempt 1. I had worked with a few of my close running friends to set this up, so we make an event page on Face book, and Andy Rinne contacted someone at the Pikes Peak Road Runners and had them post something about it on their website.
The web posting helped attract people to come out and watch the event, and we had people telling us that they only came out to see us break the record. Talk about pressure!!! Now, the Nielson Challenge is not a big time event, and its free every month. Its a figure 8 course that has a 180 degree at the 800 meter turn around point. Kinda sucks to have to basically stop and get going again.
On race day, Ryan Hafer, Robby Young, Justin Ricks, Daniel Castaneda, Andy Rinne, Andrew Abdella and myself were there. Ryan, Robby, Justin and I talked about not going out like fools and focusing on running the 800 in about 2:20-2:23. We hit it in 2:22 I believe. The mile was about 4:53 or so, and right on target. The third 800 meter section of the course is the hardest and you are basically running uphill and not trying to die. We knew that this section would make or break the race, so Robby and I pushed hard and tried to maintain the pace. At this point Justin had fallen back a bit and Ryan was hanging on as well as he could. We finished the 1.5 miles of the race and had just the last 800 meters to go. This is the fastest part of the course and I decided that it was time to really make the final hard push to the finish and put a little gap on Robby. However, we had already talked about finishing together so I backed off just slightly and we ran it in finishing in 9:48, breaking the record by 13 seconds. Three of us broke the 10 minute barrier, and 6 total ran under 11 minutes. Almost perfect splits of 4:53 and 4:55 or so.
I was very impressed about the support we received from the other runners and thank them for being there. For a small race in November that usually doesn't get many people out because the time of the year, over 120 people showed up to participate. Again very impressed with the turnout. The PPRR people were great and really had a great time being part of something that had never been done before.
After the race I continued on with Robby and Justin and we did another 21 minute workout.
There are some pictures of the race on the PPRRUN.ORG website and a small write up about what we did.

Back at it

Well it has been awhile since I have been on this blog. Lots of stuff to do, and not enough time! I am getting ready to student teach in January so my time right now is focused on the rest of the classes I have right now. On the running front, things have been going well and hopefully will continue in that direction. I have raced a little more lately and even won some nice stuff like a flat screen TV and some cash at the Manitou Springs Mayors Cup. The big challenge this week is the Neilson Challenge Sub 10 Minute event that myself and some friends are trying to do. Now, I am sure most of you are saying 10 minutes for 2 miles isn’t that hard. Well let me tell you that in all of the years that this has been going on, not one person has done it, and were talking about past Olympic runners, and people of that caliber! Our goal is to have a good group and work together as a team. This is not going to be one of those races where everybody goes out like idiots and dies. We would much rather run even splits and get as many guys under 10 minutes as possible.
I think overall, this year has been ok for running. At this point in the year, I tend to re-evaluate what I did for the year and look for areas that I can improve for next year. One of the things that I am already trying to do differently is to add workouts back into my weekly running. I neglected this for long enough and have realized that if I want to continue to improve and possibly get closer to my running goals, I need to put the work in. I hit 3000 miles at least 3-4 weeks ago, and will most likely have another year at above 3600. I really don’t care what I end up hitting, but care most about being consistent with the mileage every year. I did a lot of things differently this year which taught me what to do and what not to do. The biggest thing that I learned was what the exact maximum of weekly mileage I can handle before becoming slower was. For me, I have concluded that 80-85 MPW is as much as I will let myself get to. I had the 90+ mile weeks this year and it did nothing but tear me down! I also realized that I need to train for myself. I know what works for me and need to stay with that.
The last thing I want to hit on here is about how erratic pacing ruins races. I was guilty of going out in about 4:28 at Manitou Springs. Why I did this remains a mystery! I sometimes wonder what could have happened if I would have ran 4:45, or even 4:50. Would I have died as bad in the third mile of the race? I commonly find myself going out crazy hard for the first mile of a race, and just kind of put cruise control on after that. I need to find a balance to fix this problem and become more efficient in my pacing. I lose plenty of time in races because I can recover after blazing a mile! I guess it is just another part of the process of figuring it all out.