I guess it's time for some analysis.
This race stands as my first legitimate PR in 9 years at any distance. I have set other PR's in the last year or so, but they were all at distances that I never really had a good prior race.
I will take the PR at face value 2:39:14, but I know it is worth much more. I just don't know how much of an affect the 80 degree temperatures took. In true nerdlike fashion I did an analysis of the times of the top 100 runners in the race, looking at how much they slowed in the second half. Only about 10 ran a negative split and about 10 more were within a minute. Average and median times were about 5 minutes of positive split. I don't know what this would be under better conditions, but I am guessing closer to 2-3 minutes. I will have to look at that later. My inpression: the weather cost me probably 2 minutes. I have no way of knowing what the lack of sleep cost me. I am guessing 30-60 seconds, but I could be way off. Overall I think I put in a 2:36-2:37 equivalent performance.
Some good thoughts: I hit the half only 2:30 from my PR and feeling great. I was still at sub-2:35 pace through 20 miles.
I will have to attribute my positive results to increased mileage. I averaged about 85 MPW leading up to the race compared to about 75 in recent years.
I sacrificed some speedwork this year to put in the higher mileage. Probably not the best idea, but it worked and can/will be fixed in the future.
I had a couple niggles, but did not need to take any time off this year due to injury. Also, I haven't had to take more than 3 consecutive days off in over 4 years. I attribute this to consistancy and very gradual mileage increases. | 