Monday, May 30, 2011

On To The Next One

I apologize for the delay in my post race recap, but I was a bit busy with travel and training…Who am I kidding, I was pissed off at how I ran and didn’t feel like writing about it. Now that a few days have passed, I can’t say that I’m any happier with the race, but I’ve put it behind me and I’m looking forward to the next one. (I was legitimately without the internet the last 4 days though...)

The Race:
We were told that the pacemakers would be taking us through 400m in 57 seconds and the 800m mark in 1:55. This being my first 1500m in what seemed like forever, that pace was a little quick for what we thought I was ready for. I decided to tuck in at the back of the pack and go along for the ride; hopefully coming through 800m in about 1:58. I’m not sure what happened, but the rabbits were 61!? How you’re 4 seconds off, I’m not really sure. They picked it up quite a bit after 400m, but for some reason, the leaders didn’t even go with them!? I blame myself a bit for not making a move here, but it was a big field to move past and I couldn’t expect them not to go with the rabbits when the sole purpose of the meet was to run fast! I ended up being 63 through 400m and then 2:05-2:06 at 800m. Great. I can’t even remember the last time I was that slow at the 800m mark, other than a championship race! We got it going on the next lap and I made a hard move with about 500m to go. In retrospect, it was probably too early for me to go, but I didn’t have much choice if I wanted to run fast. I faded pretty badly in the last 100m and finished in 3:47.42. Needless to say, it was not was I was hoping for. On the positive side, it felt easy, my last 600m was in about 1:26 and I got the first one out of the way!
The weather that night was absolutely perfect for racing, so I’m frustrated by the fact that it seems like a wasted effort.
It was great to see some old friends at the meet and go out for a couple of wobbly pops after wards. I got an easy run in through the streets of Pasadena at 6am the next morning before heading off to the airport with Darren and Peter. Had a final goodbye with the roomies (several tears were shed) before heading off to my gate to board the plane bound for Philadelphia. I’ll be spending about 9 days here with Mel before heading back to the West coast for a couple of races in Vancouver.

The humidity is unbelievable here. I knew it was going to be a bit of a change from the dry heat in Arizona, but this is brutal! After living my whole life in the east, I thought I’d be fine coming back. Nope. I definitely forgot how oppressive it can be! I’ll take the 100 degrees in Scottsdale over the 85-90 degrees and 75-80% humidity here any day!

Below is a video of the race…


    - Linc

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