Coming into this outdoor track season, I was excited to put up some big pr's for my first season of collegiate track, and at my first race, everything went to plan. In my first ever 10k, I went 33:30 breaking my 28:00 8k pr en route. I know for many that's not very fast, but after a horrendious xc season it was a big motivator.
That was 2 weeks ago, and now it feels like I can't replicate that performance for even a mile. Last week, I went out in 5:05 trying to break 15:50 in the 5k, but ended up completing getting dropped and running a 16:50. I thought it was just a fluke as I ran that pace 2 times in a row just a week ago, but now in this week's 10k, I repeated the poor performance. I went through the mile at 5:15, a tiny bit faster than I'd like but you would think it would still be managable, but even this had me out of the race at the 3k. I ended up not even breaking 35:00 which has killed my confidence.
I honestly don't know what I'm doing wrong. I've been running around 65 mpw with only a workout and a race every week for the past 3 weeks, so I don't think I'm overtrained. At practice, I honestly feel good. This past Wednesday we did 6x 1600 with 90s rest and I didn't go slower than 5:20 for a single rep while feeling very relaxed.
My current theory is that my form is completely falling apart during my races as my back and hamstring have been extremely sore in both of my past two races yet never at practice. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this before? I had a friend record me in the middle of my most recent 10k (sorry for the poor angle), so I would really appreciate if someone could help me decode what I'm doing wrong. I put in so much work over the winter and I'm so scared that's going completely to waste.