Coming off of back-to-back 5Ks to wrap up 2024 and kickstart 2025, I spent 10 weeks training for my next race: Trials of Miles Project 13.1 up at Rockland Lake State Park (about 45 minutes outside the city). Rolling into this training block, I had one goal in mind and that was to run under 70 minutes. Not highly ambitious from where I was at the time, but i’ve had some unlucky half marathons in the past few years and I was going to dial in and scale up my training to hopefully get comfortably under it on the day.

The 10 week build was strong and I definitely got to the most fit I had ever been. My volume looked more like my previous marathon block (85-95 MPW) and that quickness and turnover I worked on early in the year helped that 5:10-5:20/mi range feel as smooth as it’s ever been.

Heading into race day things were looking good, the weather was just where I’d like it (around 40 degrees, maybe a tad cold), the course was flat, and it was a fast field that I knew I could work with. The race is essentially 4 laps of a ~3 mile loop around the park. I set out with the pace group aiming for sub 70 but after the first loop I fell back, my legs weren’t firing like they had been in the weeks prior. I stuck in it and finished at 1:10:24 - a 33 second PR.

A few days prior to this race I had twisted my back (unplugging a charge while laying on my couch of course) and while I didn’t think it was going to impact me too much on race day - I did feel like my stride just wasn’t as smooth and powerful as it usually was. The week after the race was up there with the most sore I’ve ever been, which confirmed to me that something was up with my mechanics.

It was still a great morning and there were a lot of familiar faces out on the course. Major props to the Trials of Miles organization for putting on a great race and to my athletes who also rang in some big PRs.

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