It’s with great pleasure Level Renner proudly presents yet another race report from a local speedster. Brian Harvey was on the line for the BAA 5k and he was kind enough to send along the inside story on his performance. Here’s his scoop on his 14:26 performance, which was good enough for 14th overall in the stacked field:
My training this week was very light (65M total) since my body was feeling off from last week’s 5K at Princeton. I live less than a mile from the start of the race and the morning of the race went very smoothly. I did a 3M warm-up with Jared Markowitz on the course and felt good on this and while doing strides. Weather was close to ideal and was excited for a fun race once I toed the line.
I got out well and tucked in behind the lead pack which was quite large (16 total). The pace felt fast but I was under control. I was still at the back of the pack as we headed up the Park Street hill to the first mile mark. I expected to see something closer to 4:30 based on the effort level but it ended up being around 4:37-4:38. The group accelerated as we crested the hill and the gap widened as we came down Beacon St. I ran with Bobby Curtis for a little while coming down the hill but he eventually caught back up to the lead group, leaving me all by myself. I came through the second mile in 9:20 (4:43 second mile). By that point, Nate Jenkins had started to fall off the pack and I then just focused on slowly reeling him in. The stretch on Comm Ave between Clarendon St to Hereford always seems like an eternity despite only being 0.5M long. I had planned before the race on counting off the letters for each block since the street names are in alphabetical order (D, E, F, G, and finally H) as a way to break this section up. I eventually caught Nate making the left turn onto Hereford and then focused on closing the gap between me and the next guy (Boaz), but the gap was too large. I finished in 14thplace in 14:26.
Last year, I did a 3M tempo (15:39) with Luke Meyer about 10min after we crossed the line. I had never done anything like that before and mostly it was unplanned. To be honest, it kind of goes against my training philosophy so I did not repeat it this year. Instead, I did a somewhat longer cool-down (8M) with teammates and joined Tim Ritchie on his warm-up for the Invite Mile, a race I would love to run someday.
My time was one second slower than I ran last year and in my opinion conditions were slightly better this year. Overall, I was disappointed in how I raced today and don’t think I had a strong mental race. I am putting it behind me and looking forward to a very competitive 5K in two weeks at Stanford’s Payton Jordan Invite. For the rest of the weekend I was focusing on supporting my girlfriend and teammates in the marathon which kept my mind off of the race.”
Looking ahead, I am planning on doing my last hard workout before Payton Jordan this Thursday PM. The plan is 800-1600-800-1600-800. The goal is 2:14, 4:30, 2:12, 4:25, 2:10. Should be a good one.
Should be a good one, indeed. Be on the lookout for that on next week’s edition of Intervals. I can’t wait!
Notes from above: the 5k at Princeton that he refers to was the Sam Howell Invitational, where he placed 5th with a 14:13.93. I’d love to provide a direct link to video but I couldn’t find any. His training log is on Athleticore, which unfortunately doesn’t allow me to post a direct link, but if you have access to the site then you can check out his scoop on that race.
This was our first contribution from Brian, and we look forward to hearing from him a lot more in the future.
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