Monday, May 17, 2010

Whoops, Spaced This One! First Race

I woke up today thinking, "I know I forgot to do something yesterday. . . Let's see. . ." It took about ten minutes before I remembered there was probably a tiny group of bored track nerds who had to waste extra time at cracked or the failblog yesterday because I didn't put this up!

It was a good week of training and racing, as I predicted last week. I eked out a close win over 3000m at the New Balance Boston Twilight Meet held at Lowell in 8:26.33.
They put the video of the race on Flotrack, which you can find here: http://www.flotrack.org/videos/coverage/view_video/237092-new-balance-boston-twilight-meet-1/334683-mov00b

Ignore the splits given, not sure why, but they were way off. From the video, I hand-timed my last 400 in 61.5 or so; they announce it as 57 with a 26 last 200. I wish! Things were windy and slow, but I'll take a win any day of the week.

Here's the log for the week:

Monday- 1PM- 10mi easy with Eric and Ken mostly, ran up Beacon through Newton and came back Comm Ave. 8PM- 4mi solo with 8 strides ad hoc over the course of the run.

Tuesday- 1:30PM- 2mi up, 2mi on a measured course on the Esplanade in 9:40 (4:40, 5:00) goal was 10:00 but I was out too fast; managed to find the right gear in the 2nd mile. Still, this was a very easy run. 2mi jog to MIT, quick bathroom trip, spikes, then 4x800 w/400j, taking turns leading with Ken and Eric. 2:13avg, last one in 2:11. I think finally getting to work out with people really helped me today, because I felt effortless. 3mi down, 12 on the day.

Wednesday- 10AM- 4mi easy with my buddy Owen, an old high school teammate of mine who just got back from a semester in Europe. 3:30PM- One lap around Fresh Pond from the house with Ken and James, something between 8.5 and 8.9. Logged it as 8.5.

Thursday- 3 up, 8x200 w/200j, 33.0 avg, nice and easy, 3 down. Ran the whole thing with James.

Friday- 2PM- 4 easy solo, muggy. 9PM- 7 easy solo again, muggy again. I was about 150 yards from my front door when a drunk clown down the street hucked a beer bottle at me. It missed, but landed at my feet and exploded, splashing me with beer. Cheap beer, from the smell of it. Yech.

Saturday- 11AM- 4 mile shakeout. 6PM- NB Twilight Meet, 3000m, 8:26.33 for 1st. Slow pace, windy day- from 1200-2600 it was truly slow going. Surprised, though, how quickly I recovered and how good I felt overall. After my race, I spent most of the evening in the booth with Steve Infascelli, my old counselor from running camp. Infa did a bangup job with the announcing, despite it being his second track meet of the day. I also met a fellow dyestatter IRL, and no one was assaulted or abused, so remember, kids- the internet is a great place to make friends!

Sunday- 2:30PM- Fresh Pond solo from the house, perfect weather again. Is this Boston or the Bay Area?! A safe 8.5 miles. 8:30PM- The standard 4mi shakeout loop solo. Sometime in the intervening hours between runs, my hamstrings and calves tightened up a little, but I'm not concerned.

Week total- 82mi

Somewhere in there, I did pushups and core work and drills. . . but for the life of me, I can't remember which day! I think I have a long way to go with core/drills- the video shows quite a bit of wasted motion in my form which I think I can mostly get a handle on with stronger core muscles. Being the softest sub-4:10 miler I know is a dubious honor at best.

Anyway, hope everyone had as good a week as I did! Next up for me is another NB Twilight Meet, but this time I'll be running the 5000. I'd like to take a crack at 14:40, but we'll see how things go.

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