Race is done...so now what?!?

 Last week was my race...my "A" race if you will.  It was a 4.8 mile trail race that I'd been training all year for...well for as long as I've been running this year!!

In my previous post I had talked about some times I was seeing with the Stryd calculator.  I felt they were a bit off but if those had come true I would have been over the world to have one of them.  However a day or two before I was to run my race I was able to download a copy of the race course and input it into Stryd which gave me a more accurate time.  I believe the projected time, if I ran at that power (280 watts), would have been 51:45 or something along those lines.  

Saturday morning I was feeling good.  I had a bit of toast with peanut butter and some coffee at the house and then we drove to the course which was about 30 minutes away from town.  I did a little over a half mile of warm up and then waited for the first race, an 8 miler, to go off and then we lined up and waited for 8:15.  One thing I noticed is that I was really thirsty before the race...I ended up drinking most of my wife's water bottle...she didn't appreciate that!

The first mile or so is up hill and can be a bit crowded.  So I didn't want to get behind some people but I also didn't want to blow myself up.  While I didn't blow up I did go faster than my prescribed watts but I was able to run my own race.  There was a few points where I had people behind me that kept me pushing which meant higher wattages than I wanted or should have ran.  By the time I was near the 4 mile mark I was starting to suffer.  I just didn't have any power in my legs and I think a lot of it had to do with lack of food...or just going beyond what I should have.  

In the end I finished with a new PR of 53:45 for the course (I think the official time on UltraSignup.com is 53:41 if I'm not mistaken). I didn't hold my power wattage as I should have and my average was around 272.  I wonder if I would have held my wattage at 280, if I would have had a better time and more kick at the end or at leas been able to run the last hill rather than walk it. I'll know more as I race with wattage.  

But now that my "A" race is done I'm left wondering what I should train for next.  Long term I want to tackle the half marathon and perhaps longer (as a trail race).  In the short term I'm not sure what I should be doing...I almost feel lost.  However I think I've found what I'm going to focus on and work to improve.  

Like all runners I want to get faster.  That's just going to come over time and consistent training.  One of the many things I need to work on is my cadence.  I have a really slow cadence so I'm going to really try and work on that over the next couple of weeks and hopefully build up some good habits on it so it's nothing I have to think about.  It's probably something best to work on during treadmill season but I feel like I can also work on it outside as well.  So that's what I'm going to do. I might do a 5K in the early part of December but right now this cadence training holds my interest...for whatever reason.  I'm sure I can combine the two but for now I'm at least just going to run for another week without any specific training and just work on cadence and how it feels.  

Hope everyone is doing well!

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