Sean's Running Blog

WWU Ralph Vernaccia Invitational

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Location:

Snoqualmie,WA,

Member Since:

Feb 24, 2007

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Local Elite

Running Accomplishments:

  • 2011 Boston Marathon -- 2:27 (Top 50)
  • 2011 Steilacoom 20k -- 1:04:57 (1st)
  • 2010 Indianapolis Monumental Marathon -- 2:26 (7th) 
  • 2010 Fall City 10k -- 31:06 (1st)
  • 2009 Indy Mini Marathon -- 1:07:53 (7th)
  • 2009 WWU Invitational -- 10000m (30:58)
  • 2009 UW Indoor Meet -- 5000m (14:49)
  • 2008 Orem Turkey Run -4 miler -- 19:55 (1st)
  • 2008 Seafair Torchlight 8k--25:03 (3rd) 
  • 2008 Time to Fly 5k -- 15:35 (1st)
  • 2008 Newport Marathon -- 2:22:47 (1st)
  • Steilacoom 15M--1:18:30 (1st)
  • 2007 Olympic Trials -- 2:30:41 (91st)
  • 2007 St. George --2:18:55 (3rd)

Short-Term Running Goals:

  • Feb 23 -- Ft Steilacoom 15M
  • March 23  – Ft. Steilacoom 20k
  • April 15  – Boston Marathon
  • June 8 – Sound to Narrows 12k
  • June 22  – Grandma’s Half Marathon (USATF Champs.)
  • July 7 – Run of the Mill 5k
  • July 27 – Torchlight 8k
  • September – SJJ Half (maybe)
  • October/November – Fall Marathon (maybe)
  • December – Club XC Nationals

Long-Term Running Goals:

 Stay healthy

Personal:

Ran track my junior and senior years in high school and cross country my senior year. Went to BYU but did not run. Served LDS church mission to San Bernardino, CA. Started running again in April 2005. Marathon debut was St. George in 2005.

I coach the Mount Si High School Track Team (distance)

Been married for almost 17 years. My wife, Mara, and I have four kids ages 16, 14, 13 and 11.

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Brooks T5 Lifetime Miles: 34.00
Ravenna Lifetime Miles: 250.00
Race: WWU Ralph Vernaccia Invitational (6.21 Miles) 00:30:58, Place overall: 1, Place in age division: 1
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
4.000.006.210.0010.21

What a difference two seconds makes. This evening I achieved my second of four goals I have for the year...I ran a sub 31:00 10,000m in a time of 30:58. How heartbreaking 31:01 would have been. But I was not to be denied.

[Full results here: http://wwuvikings.cstv.com/sports/c-track/stats/041109aaa.html]

The race was supposed to start at 9:15pm but was delayed until 9:45pm which made a late evening even later. It wasn't a big deal for me but my parents came to watch as did my wife and kids so it was pretty late for them.

The weather was simply perfect. 48-50 degrees. No wind and occasional light drizzle although by race time I think it had stopped.

There were about 15 people in the race. Western Washington University hosted the race in Bellingham. It is a D-II school and some of the other schools were CCs. So the competition wasn't top notch. The meet record for the event was 32:30 or something around there.

When I signed up to do the race a month ago, there were supposed to be five of us running it all with the goal of breaking 31:00. But three had to bail out so it was just me and Steve DeKoker, a WWU alum who also happens to run Brooks’ awesome Brooks ID program...something many on this board should check out. Great discounts and some get free gear and shoes.

Steve and I agreed on a strategy during our warm up. We would switch off the lead every four laps and just try and hit 74s the whole way. Unfortunately, we got stuck in the second row of the waterfall start. In hindsight, it would have been better to be way out in lane 8. The first 150 meters Steve and I were totally boxed. Just before the 200 meter mark, I found a small hole and went for it…just in time to see that the first 200 was in 40 seconds…WAY too slow. It should have been in the 37 range. By the 300m mark Steve had made it out of the pack and took over the lead as we had planned. Lap 1 was slow (76 seconds) but not as bad as it could have been. I didn’t get too uptight about it. Frankly, running a 76 was better than coming out in a 71.

By the 800 meter mark, the race was over in terms of place. Steve and I had gapped everyone and it was pretty clear that we would finish ahead of everyone. But neither of us was there to place. We wanted sub 31:00. The first 1600 came quickly (4:57) and right on pace. I took over the lead from Steve and led the next four laps which went smoothly but somehow a bit slower than we wanted (5:01). I’m not sure what happened because I felt great and was having no issues at all. Oh well. Steve then took over for his second set of four laps which we covered in 5:00 flat…still a second or two slower. I was back in the lead and carried us through the 5k mark, which is when I began to get a bit worried. We crossed the 5k mark at 15:38. Eight seconds over pace is manageable but not a gimme, especially with the hardest (at least mentally) part of the race yet to come. My goal at that point was to try and make up one second each lap. Mission accomplished as we crossed the 6400 mark (9 laps to go) in 4:56. That was more like it. We picked up three of the eight seconds with nine laps to go. Then another bit of bad news…Steve began having GI issues and told me he was going to back off and couldn’t take over the lead for his third and final segment. Ugh. Steve is 6’4”. I am 5’8” with shoes on. I really enjoyed drafting behind him. Oh well. So with nine laps to go, I knew I was on my own in a race I had never competed in before and still five or so seconds over pace. First lap all on my own (#19) was in 74. OK, but I needed a few 73s or even a 72 to get back on pace. 20th lap (the 8k mark) went a little better in 73 crossing the 8k mark in 24:48, shattering my previous 8k PR of 25:03. That turned out to be a pretty huge confidence booster that I really needed with 5 laps to go. I was really starting to hurt and have some doubts as I was doing fuzzy math in my head about what it was going to take to reach my goal. Lap 21 came in at 75. Not good. The first two hundred of this lap was in 37, the worst split I had had all race at the 200m mark so I knew the lap was going to be slow. So with four laps to go, I had given back another second. Ugh. But lap 22 I found some strength somewhere and pulled in a 74 with the cumulative clock at 27:07. So I needed to cover 1200m in 3:52 or better. Lap 23 was perhaps the most difficult. My sub 31:00 was still in jeopardy and I was running out of gas and had no help. I had lapped several people throughout the race and that serves as some motivation and help but nothing like having a 6’4” wind shield. Despite how hard lap 23 felt, I managed a 73. This was HUGE. With two laps to go, I was sitting at 28:30. In other words, I need a 2:29 final 800m to reach my goal. I knew I could do this. I began to pick it up a bit in Lap 24. I consciously made the decision to not leave any work undone for the final lap. So I kicked it up a notch. It turned out to be a smart move. Lap 24 was a 72, just the second 72 I had all race. With one lap to go, the clock read 29:46. I still needed a 73 to get the job done and that was no gimme. The first 200m of the final lap was in a “blistering” :35. With 200 to go, I simply needed a :38 to break 31:00. With 100 to go, I could see the clock and just gave it everything I had. I crossed the finish line in 30:58…barely a second to spare. I was so thrilled. I think my dad may have been even happier. He was there at the finish to congratulate me which meant a lot.

As it turns out, the time was a meet record.

Some have said the 5000 meters is the most grueling distance. Maybe. But I found the 10,000 and its 25 sometimes monotonous laps to be pretty grueling.

One more thing about running in a pack. There are definitely very real and measureable physical benefits to running with a group at any distance. But there is a mental benefit that is every bit as meaningful. The key to any distance race is being able to break the race up into sections whether its miles, laps or even minutes. The 10,000 meters became much more mentally manageable to me because Steve and I broke it up into 1600m segments. There was something very powerful in trading the lead every four laps that really made the race one of segments not simply a 25-lap race.

So what can I improve on to do even better next time...:

  • Lapping -- one of the challenges of such a long race around a track (unless you are running at something like a Stanford Invite) is you are inevitably going to lap people. My coach's estimate was that I lapped 25-30 people over the course of 25 laps. Unfortunately, many of those occured in the turns. I tried to avoid running in Lane 2 as much as possible but I spent more time there than I would have liked. Not sure what there is to do about that but it was a small factor.
  • Faster front half. Only after thinking about my times more yesterday did I realize the huge differential in the 5k splits. 15:38 for the front half and 15:20 for the back half. A negative split isn't necessarily all that bad but one of 18 seconds is a bit much. Next time, I will go out in 15:20-25 and then try and hold that for the second half. It was my first 10,000m so I didn't want to do anything silly on the front half that would cost me later, but now with one under my belt, speeding up from the front 5k would be my first place to look to bring down my time.
  • Bigger Pack -- I outlined above the benefits of a pack. Laws of physics support this and real-life experience validates it. If I run a track 10k again, I will make sure it's at a meet where there is a larger group of guys to do what Steve and I did, but do it for the entire race. Losing Steve with 9 laps to go was noticeable and it could have only helped to have had someone else to trade off with for those final 9 laps.

Brooks Infinity Black #1 Miles: 4.00
Weight: 0.00
Comments
From ryan on Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 01:07:59 from 71.213.75.222

great race. you deserve it. your hard work is paying off. i always enjoy your race reports. keep up the good training.

From Steve P on Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 02:40:08 from 66.60.123.236

Great race! Way to stick with your goal through the end. Nice report.

From Dale on Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 02:41:12 from 198.36.177.15

Outstanding race, Sean. Yeah, I was really happy for you, and wouldn't have missed that race for anything. It took me back to your Roseberg Twilight Classic so many years ago. Your dedication to your training, and the workouts with your training buddies is a definite plus. But as you've convincingly demonstrated in the Newport Marathon last year, and again last night, your greatest strength is your ability to stay on pace when you don't have a pack to share the load with....and that has to be a huge confidence builder. You gain tremendous valuable experience with every race and are progressing at a logarithmic rate. I'm happy for and exceedingly proud of you.

From Burt on Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 05:15:04 from 98.167.151.26

That's awesome. My favorite part was the fuzzy math.

From James W on Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 10:53:25 from 70.190.199.29

Congratulations on the 10,000 PR. I really enjoyed reading your incredibly detailed race report.

From johnr on Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 19:24:08 from 75.174.127.55

Congrats on a nice PR and a mentally strong race. You are on a roll lately - can't wait to see what Newport brings.

From paul on Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 19:49:31 from 75.162.205.90

Awesome job. I agree, the track 10K is the most grueling event. I think the only even that comes close in terms of pain is the 1500m.

I just noticed that you are signed up for the Indy Mini. I'll be running there as well. I don't think I'll be in sub-1:08 shape, but maybe we can run a few miles together anyway. In any case, it will be nice to see you there.

From Sean Sundwall on Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 23:48:52 from 24.16.6.48

Paul...great to hear you are back in racing shape. I'm excited about Indy because the competition should be very deep. With reasonable weather, I think I can reach my goal.

From paul on Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 07:41:58 from 75.162.205.90

Well, racing shape is relative, but I'll do my best. I'm looking forward to Indy as well. My parents have been bugging me for years to do it, so this year I finally planned my annual family trip to Indiana during the same weekend of the race. It should certainly be deep, although since they discontinued their elite program and no longer offer free travel, perhaps we will see fewer Kenyans. But the prize money is still large and deep enough that there will be plenty of 1:05-1:10 people.

From Snoqualmie on Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 13:02:36 from 67.171.56.164

Congratulations, Sean!! You are such a superstar. I loved reading the race report - so exciting! You really found that extra gear. I'm so happy for you.

From Jon on Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 15:00:08 from 138.64.2.76

Congrats- that is an amazing time and well deserved.

As for your 3 things to improve- if you can find a track meet with number 3 (bigger pack) and fewer slow runners, number 1 should disappear. Or find a road 10k with no laps.

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