Got in the pool for an hour this afternoon – nothing crazy, didn’t feel like taking the day off and it allowed me to get a good massage afterwards. My hip flexors were a little sore from yesterday, probably from all the tight flat turns. Found some tender spots in my thighs and hamstrings with the hose, hit them all for an extended session.
Back to work tomorrow, I lay over in Tysons Corner, MD all week as I fly from Dulles (Wash DC) to Indianapolis and back every night. Tysons isn’t a bad layover – plenty of restaurants, etc around, plus a “rails to trails” running path nearby to get my mileage in. I am currently waiting to see if my entry is accepted or not for a masters mile race in Boston in two weeks – once I get that sorted out I will be able to fine tune my training plan for near future. Plan for now is to head out to the Middletown pool at the HydroWorx Center tomorrow and get in some long intervals, then 2-3 long runs and a tempo run down in Maryland. Don’t see running a race this weekend, but will be getting on a track (somewhere) the weekend of the 5th if my FedEx schedule allows…
Have thought about this weekend’s race a bit since Saturday afternoon. Still trying to think of what I could have done different to have broken the tape, still haven’t come up with anything. Watching the tape, Charlie Kern was stepping it out the last lap while I was struggling to get my pin spikes off the ground high enough as to not drag one and trip. I know I did most of the “work” leading virtually the entire race, but I had planned on going for it, and if you live by the sword you die by the sword. Had I taken a different approach things may have turned out differently, but probably not. The important thing is that we’ll never know.
Once I get over that letdown, I’m coming to the realization that the time isn’t worth fretting. It’s always hard to compare apples to oranges, which is what it is trying to compare a 1500m outdoors with a mile on a flat indoor oval. Yesterdays venue, while old school and historic and not bad for a flat track, is just that – an old flat track. How fast would that have been on something space aged? Who knows. Who cares, for that matter. I’ll get another chance – my ‘problem’ probably lies with trying to set a dream PR on a day I would have been better served trying to run a smart race. My time was a PR, so I’m going to take it and ‘run’. 4:20 was never going to happen at Cornell – last years 4:24.76 was a great springboard to the rest of the season, hopefully this years 4:23.48 will do the same. A year older and 1.3 seconds faster – other folks probably wish they had my same problems….
As for the color of the medal, you win some you lose some. I hadn’t lost in quite a while, but it safe to say that I would never have been on such a “roll” if I had been racing the likes of Charlie week in and week out. I’m looking forward to dropping down eventually to my bread and butter distance, 800m – hopefully all this mile stuff will have put some hair on my chest by then. I’m not going to try to drastically change anything training-wise moving forward because I still feel I am on track to accomplish the things I had hoped this indoor season and into outdoors. Only racing every other week gives you way too much time to dwell on races, and not a very big sample of work to compare things and detect improvement. The races will start to come more regularly from here on out, so I’m going to stay the course and wait to pop one. All this internal debate after a PR – I’m going to need to book the therapist’s couch if I ever lay an egg at a meet…..
Ammendment: Found the splits from the race, courtesy of Stephan Karkuff, Cumberland
Now that I think about it Rocky lost in this one just like me....
Valley alumni, former XC captain, Ithaca College harrier, and overall good guy. Stephan was at the meet and was my corner man – next year my instructions might have to include getting him to channeling some Burgess Meredith to get me over the hump. Raw eggs for breakfast? Telling me “You’re gonna eat lightning, and you’re gonna crap thunder!”? We’ll work on that…. Anyway – had planned to shoot for around 32.5 sec laps, 4:20 through 1600m, 1.7 for the mile extra would be a little under 4:22. The numbers and the video show I was a lot closer than I thought, and even when it felt like the wheels were coming off the train I was actually able to hang in there pretty well. It just goes to show what a quarter second here and there does to a shot at glory.
The start
Lap#1 31.9 (always happens with the burst for position) Lap#2 32.4/64.3 (settled in by now). Lap#3 32.8 (not bad) Lap#4 32.6/65.4/2:09.7 (if offered this before the race would have been thrilled). Lap#5 32.9 (uh oh?) Lap#6 32.7/65.6/3:15.3 (falling off slightly, rabbit gone, Charlie lurking). Lap#7 33.0 (you can see where this is heading)Lap#8 32.9/66.0/4:21.3 for 1600m (hard to believe, felt like a 43.o, Charlie must have been sub-30 for the last lap). With the 1.8 or so to make it a whole mile, plus the hand additive, Stephan pretty close to my FAT. Thanks buddy!
If this were only the finish.....
......instead of this.
Nick Berra 