5k race / VDOT test - Matt Aaronson
I ran a New Year's 5k in Chicago this morning to use as a beginning-of-the-JOS VDOT test. I finished in 20:27 for a VDOT of 48.5…lower than I'd have liked but exactly where I was at the beginning of the JOS last year.
The context:
- Prior season VDOT high of 51.5 set in an Olympic-distance triathlon 10k in late June
- Last tested VDOT of 50.0 set on Nov 4 in a 15k race
- Weight at 146 compared with ~137-138 "norm". I was at ~142 for the 15k in November
- Lots of food and beverage and "merriment" yesterday on a late Dec 31 evening / early Jan 1 morning…
I had some sort of irrational hope that I'd go sub 20:00 for a 50-ish VDOT despite being in full-on "offseason" for the past few months and traveling a ton for my job, working out very sporadically and eating extremely well.
I woke up and didn't feel too bad given the prior evening's festivities. I took a taxi to my parents' place to meet up with my dad, downed a gel and ran 9' to the starting line at a 6:56 pace.
The conditions were relatively cold – mid-to-low 20's – and moderately breezy from the north – ~12-14mph. The course went south then east for about 3/4 mile then straight north (headwind) for about a mile, then straight south (tailwind) to the finish.
It was a decent turnout of over 800 runners and I started near the front with my dad. As luck would have it, my Garmin went into powersave mode with seconds to go before the start. So my Garmin had to re-acquire satellites before I started it (overall I started it ~10 seconds after the start of the race).
I started off at a good pace but it became clear within a few minutes that the path was going to be icy and snowy pretty well the whole way. So that impacted my pace a little, and also sapped my energy a bit more than running on dry pavement.
I made the turn northbound and it was quite windy. Windy enough to give some bizarre HR readings as I found out later when I uploaded the run. You will see in the splits that my pace suffered here. I was trying to find someone to draft off of but there wasn't really anyone around me. By mile 2 I had the tailwind but my pace was only up about 10 sec/mile…I could tell by the clock that sub-20:00 would require a 6:00 pace for the rest of the race and that wasn't happening. I stepped it up a little to make sure the result would be respectable!
In the last quarter mile a couple of guys ran by me and I ran by a few others, but overall the field was pretty spread out where I was.
Mile 1 – 6:26 pace (mostly tailwind and crosswind)
Mile 2 – 6:41 pace (mostly headwind)
Mile 3.1 – 6:30 pace (mostly tailwind)
I actually ended up 14th OA (out of 828) and won my AG, but that's more a reflection of the competition than my effort! All the really fast runners in the 17:00 range were kids!!
I finished then ran back about half a mile to see my dad coming down the homestretch and ran him in to make sure he finished strong. Then I ran 10' back to my parents' place at a 7:16 pace to meet up with my wife and kids and enjoy a New Years Day brunch!
Run to the start: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/256798550
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Comments
Nice work Aaron! Very impressive given the circumstances. Even more so seeing that you did that in the cold/snow.
I'm curious, how much of a VDOT increase do you expect to get out of the OS? You and I are/were at pretty similar fitness levels. I think by the time I'm done with the OS in a few weeks I'll have increased by ~2 points (up to ~52) since the beginning? Right now my biggest personal limiter is run volume and maintaining that consistently over weeks and months. What do you project your OS running to look like?
One thing I haven't been doing is the extra Z3 work on the back end of each workout. I guess that would be a good way to add volume, but since those paces are so close to Z4 I'm worried about burning myself out. I think it might just be psychological though; I haven't been doing nearly enough of that to determine whether it's really "too much".
Yeah, once the VDOT gets to 50-ish the z3 and z4 is within 10 seconds per mile or less. There was a good thread last year with some higher VDOT folks discussing that they go for z2 on the remainder time. Personally I target z3 and often hit z4 (b/c hey, it's only 8-10 sec difference). I think that "remainder time" -- both on the run and bike -- plays a much more important role in building fitness than people give it credit for.