Race: Saint Vincent Alumni 5K
Date: August 24, 2019
Location: Latrobe, PA
Time: 25:54
Overall Rank: X out of XX
Age Group Rank: X out of X
Results: http:
Shannan and I ran the Saint Vincent Alumni 5K race on campus this morning. I pushed myself fairly hard and finished in 25:54. I felt pretty good about this result until I looked up my previous times doing this race. I finished in 24:49 in 2016 and 25:19 in 2015. Well, crap. I'm getting slower with age. I knew it would happen sooner or later.
The same pattern was revealed a few weeks ago when I completed the Presque Isle sprint triathlon. I felt really good about my performance until I looked up my previous times. My 2018 race was faster than my 2019 race by a 1:01 for the bike segment and 0:26 for the run segment.
The number one issue that keeps me from going faster is my tolerance of discomfort. For example, today my average heart rate was 155 bpm (max = 206 bpm on the hill!). It should be sustainable and safe for me to run with an average heart rate of 167 bpm, so I clearly didn't run at my top level of effort, even though I felt I was. Does getting older lead to an increasingly false perception of effort?
