Sat 6/8 - PM 60 minutes incl. track 5k

Continuing to delude myself. Thought I could manage 75-6 pace for this race but found out soon after halfway that it wouldn't be happening. Made even more frustrating by the fact that there was a decent sized pack running exactly that speed which dropped me at 1200 and I was completely incapable of getting back on the train. In fact, the pace got steadily, inexorably slower as things went along as shown by the splits:

3:08 (1600 5:01)
3:10
3:12 (3200 10:08)
3:15 (4800 15:24)
3:17

A clear case of water finding its own level. After running much of the race in no-man's land I was passed near the end by a couple people, completely incapable of doing anything about it. The effort was certainly there throughout, finished feeling quite spent and the only tactic throughout was to hang on as long as possible. Given that I was able to run almost 40 seconds faster two years ago carving up the blame pie is inevitable. In hindsight of course the far too late bedtimes Wednesday and Thursday set me up nicely for this turd. Stayed up way too late last night as well. Bedtime continues to be much too late in general and much harder to change than it should be. Conditions less than ideal, after yesterday's rain cleared out it warmed up somewhat. Not overbearingly hot but enough to make for sticky humidity and of course the wind was coming down the backstretch yet again. Had I been tucked into the pack where I should have been it wouldn't have been that big a deal. Sleep and weather may have allowed me to run close to my modest seed time but I feel the right leg is responsible for the lion's share of the dropoff in performance. I thought while warming up that it was feeling relatively decent but this is highly relative by now as the whole thing is a mess. Calf is constantly frayed and whatever I tweaked in the glute/hamstring area back in January stubbornly refuses to get better. I'm convinced that the slowdown today is due mainly to the ever-increasing difficulty of maintaining a given speed on an ever-stiffening leg. Cooled down on the grass in bare feet and I could feel both calves and the right glute locking up with each passing minute. Spent lots of time rolling on the calf and butt after I got home, felt like I was moving adhesions around more than breaking them up.