Two second-bests (USATF-NE)

(Results) This was the race where I was going to break 5:00 in the mile. I prepared for it all week, and I made sure I was as ready as possible to do the best I possibly could. However, things did not go the way I had planned them out; the race got away from me, and I ended up running 5:11.69. If I had not had a breakthrough race at Terrier, then this would have been a slight PR, but because I ran so well at Terrier, I had hoped that I could do much better than this. Under 5:00, even. But it was not to be.

I followed my plan of sticking behind my teammates who were sure to run a few seconds under 5:00 in the mile. We went through 1/4 mile in 73.4 and I stuck right behind them. Then we went through three laps in 1:53 and I knew something was not right. When we went through 1/2 mile in 2:31.6 (thank you, time clock, for having tenths) I was totally off of my plan. That was more than 2:30, therefore more than 5:00. NOT part of the plan. I didn't want to pass my teammates on the outside, so I stuck behind them and slowed down for the next four laps. My legs were just not giving me any power. My last lap was a 40. It was not pretty. Of course, I can say "I felt terrible and I still ran 5:11!" but I would much rather feel great and run fast than feel bad and run a moderately acceptable time.

This was the fifth weekend in a row that I raced, and I just have to acknowledge that racing many weeks in a row is not a recipe for success, at least for me. I should have learned this in the fall, when I had 3-4 weeks without a race and then ran a 41-second 5k PR in the JCC race. The lesson should have been underscored a few weeks later at the Tufts 10k, which was my fourth race in five weeks, in which I felt awful. So I am going to try to plan out my racing schedule better for the spring and the rest of the year, and have my goal races follow a good training block, rather than after a bunch of other races.

I doubled back in the 800, but someone entered my seed time as 2:34 instead of 2:24, so I was in the last section. I ran 2:24.95, with splits of 70-75 or maybe 71-74 depending on how you take the 440-yard track into account. My PR is 2:24.74, so this is very close to my PR (which I also ran as a double). It was basically a time trial; because I was in the slowest section, I was 10 seconds ahead of second place, and I even lapped someone on the final turn. As one of my friends indelicately put it -- "You weren't in the fast section; you were in the FAT section!" Sad, but true. At least it makes for good stories to tell later.

Unfortunately, 2:24.95 is a 0.79903 performance index, falling short of my goal of 0.8. Well, my streak of 0.8s had to stop sometime. It would have happened on a long distance event anyway (my 1:26 half marathon is only 0.77) and 0.799 is very close to 0.8. My teammates were kidding with me about breaking my streak of PRs -- and they're right, you can't PR every race, certainly not if you do a lot of races, especially five weeks in a row.

Now I will try to get in a good training block before outdoor track starts, and do my best to rein in my desire to do road races just to win money. That's so 2010.