Another slow day down by the river

Did the Logan House 5K today. Same course as I did the 5K on 1/3/10. Raining. Lots of standing water. cool.

Wanted to do better than my 1/2 marathon of last week indicated which was 21:35-21:45. This is comparaitvely a harder course than the 1/2 marathon course--still I thought my emphasis on speed would yield something (I hoped) in the low 21s.

I did a 21:56. bummer--I'm disappointed.

It is better than the 22:32 I did in January:

Mile 1: 1/3/10: 6:53/159bpm vs. 3/14/10: 6:39/162
Mile 2: 7:10/172 vs. 7:06/172
Mile 3: 7:38/172 vs. 7:20/172
0.1: 0:52/171 vs. 0:51/173

Overall 1/3/10: 22:35 vs. 3/14/10: 21:57

Takeaways:
1. I know the first mile seems fast in both cases but the course has a fast first mile--that said--maybe too fast (but I doubt it)

2. The relative data between the 1/2 and the 5K says I'm better at longer distances than shorter, which has historically been true (up through the 1/2) but my recent training has emphasized the opposite so I'm skeptical.

3. Looking at people I know in this race, everyone had slower times than normal--is the course long/slow in some way Or is this wishful thinking)?

4. I finished in the top 10% OA and 2nd out of 16 in my AG (to Pete Gitney, who is one of the best here in DE--better than Nace for those looking for a comparison).

5. I did improve by 38 secs or 12+ sec/mile vs. 1/3/10.

6. Not to make excuses but this was a demanding week both from a training and a work perspective.

That said, I wanted and expected to do better. I'm not going to let it beat me up. Sometimes that's the way it goes. I think I'm a lot better than I showed today and I'm going to bring that belief to the starting line at Oceanside.

Week summary:

279 miles on the bike
27 miles running (had to back off with the two races)
10,000 yards swimming
24.5 hours total training.

Need to slam for another 5 days and then begin to zero in on Oceanside. Unfortunately I have to do a day trip to San Fran tommorrow--getting back Tues am at 6 am---oh well....on it goes!

I'm still going to qualify!