travis country LAB

We met at Central Market this morning for a 4 mile warm up to the Travis Country 5 mile loop. The plan was to do three of these loops at MGP, with a 2 minute break between each one. My plan was to do one, see how my hamstring felt...and then decide how to proceed. The warm up was fine. Humid and a little stiff, but not bad. I've been training at 2:55 pace which is a 6:40 mile..so that was my goal for the loops. I managed to be inconsistent, at best. Last season when we did this workout, I remember I didn't wear a watch but just latched on to the "train" and was right on every mile. This year I'm kind of in no man's land and I'm really struggling to hit paces. I'm either too fast or too slow. When I go out too fast I end up paying in the end. I've learned this lesson but haven't figured out how to prevent myself from repeating the same mistakes. The splits for each of my loops is below:
loop 1 loop 2 loop 3
6:31 6:30 8:08
6:28 6: 31 6:34
6:34 6:27 6:47
6:50 6:40 7:04
6:56 7:07 7:23

I have a couple of conclusions to draw from this....first of all, I wasn't smart on the first loop. I went out too fast, and wasn't "fit" enough to finish at the same pace. The out and back and hill on the last part of the loop were tough and I paid because of the fast start. The second loop is actually the only one I wasn't too far off. I went out fast again (which was stupid) but I actually felt pretty strong. I felt like I was in a comfortable rhythm and when I thought I was fading I was actually right at MGP. Going up the last hill on the 2nd loop, my hamstring really started to hurt. I intentionally let up at this point and took it in easy (hence the 7:07). I thought about calling it quits, but after talking to Steve I decided I needed the mileage so I'd go out easy on the third loop and just jog the whole thing if necessary. After a mile of letting my leg loosen up, I tried to push it again. I was relatively successful, but when it started tightening up again towards the end I backed off. The good news is I got in a full 23 miles and my actual average for the MGP miles was 6:50...which includes the 8 min mile. So while I wasn't consistent, I wasn't too far off overall.

On the cool down I was fine. I actually came back in faster than I went out. The big question mark in my mind is how much of my inconsistency and inability to nail workouts right now is fitness vs. mental vs injury. I'm sure it's some sort of combination of the three. The possibility of readjusting my Boston goal came up which I really wasn't happy to hear. 2:55 doesn't sound too crazy for me and 6:40 hasn't felt hard...but I'm not running 6:40, I'm going out too fast and running harder than that on most of the workouts. The ease of the cool down made me feel like my fitness is not the problem, but I'm not 100% convinced of that. If it is part injury, hopefully the next few days will take care of that. I'm going to back off and stick to some easy trails or just off days. I have to get my hamstring 100% so I can figure out what the real issue is. If it's mental, that's a different ballgame and I'll deal with it one work-out at a time.

pluses: kids enjoyed middle school retreat

minuses: not enough sleep