Sat 5/18 - PM 60 minutes incl. 7600m on track (DNF)

The chickens came home to roost. In short, unable to maintain the relatively modest 80 second pace I had planned on. The two looming factors coming into the race, right leg muscular dysfunction and underlying fatigue/exhaustion from poor sleep habits, both played a role to be sure. Tried to deal with each of them during the course of the day leading up to the race, not with any real success of course. Both problems far too deep-rooted to respond to a couple days' worth of TLC. I feel like the calf was the more influential problem but who knows, who cares. I do feel that had one or the other of the two issues not been an issue I would have made the 33:30 cutoff. Wherever the fault lies, the pace felt doable for a good chunk of the race, first 4k felt quite controlled in fact. At that point though I had to shove off from the person I was using as a draft and make the pace on my own. Hit halfway still on pace and figuring with a ten second cushion for the second half I could hold the line to the end even if I slowed a bit. The sixth km things started to feel like they might go sideways, calf starting to twinge. Soon after that it became painfully clear I wasn't going to hold the pace and the rate of decay outstripped my cushion. Almost stopped at 7k but the fact that I had already made it so far into the race kept me from going through with it. At 19 laps however it was enough. Easy to say in hindsight that it would have been possible to dip under 33:30 with a rally near the finish but the trend was unmistakable and not to be denied. I would have hit 8k in just under 26:50 (7600 reached in 25:27), i.e. 6:40 to run the final five laps. There would have been no finishing with a flourish, only 81 second laps turning into 82s and so on. I would have ended up within 5 seconds or so on the wrong side of the standard, having turned myself inside out for nothing. Galling as it is to drop out so deep into a race, the choice was clear. The mounting pain and stiffness in the calf certainly facilitated the decision. Calf felt weak and compromised afterward, no surprise there, piriformis stiffening with every passing minute during the car ride home. Splits by km:

3:20.4
3:19.0
3:20.0
3:22.4 felt the pacer slow, ditched him at 3900m
3:19.4
3:21.6 first signs of trouble
3:22.1
last 600m 2:02