It's a start

I know taking a week in between blogs must have been really hard for everyone (all 2 people). But no worries, I'll make up for it in this post.

Part of the reason I didn't post right after last Saturday's race (the Pacers Mile in the middle of the Draper Invitational) was, I had managed to PR in the mile by 10 seconds but I felt like I didn't lay it out there. I was in shape to run faster and it just didn't happen and I think it was more mental than physical. After being pretty terrible for four years at GW, it became more of a mental barrier to have the confidence to run fast rather than being in the physical shape to do so. I think more people were impressed with that mile than I was, I knew I could break 4:20, I just didn't take any chances which was the bigger problem.

Five days later I planned on running the 1500m at the Maryland Twilight meet. In the past I definitely would have freaked, knowing I had done a lot of hard work in the last 2 weeks without any taper. But the one thing that I've started to notice working with Coach is; even when my legs feel like absolute shit before a workout, or even between intervals, I can still run hard. All Coach had my do on Tuesday was 8 by 200 all around 30 (a few were 28-29). So I felt fairly sharp for Thursday's race.

However, the morning of the race, while I was on my shakeout I felt like my hip was really out of place. All the time I was at work it just felt wrong and my back started to bother me. Julie finally convinced me to try to get Dr. Beck to see me(I guess every now and then its a good idea to listen to her). I honestly thought he wouldn't be able to squeeze me in, but luckily he saw me and popped everything back into place. Drove up with Lindsey (big thank you to her for constantly putting up with driving me to practice and this meet). Drive up was a little hectic but it all worked out and we got up there with plenty of time for Lindsey to relax and then warm up before her race. It was just an 800m race to bust some of the rust off her legs, and she definitely did that. She sat back in the pack until about 500m to go and then started moving up. With 250m to go she blasted by everyone and then lead it all the way to the tape. She looked really smooth and ran even splits for a 2:07. It was really cool to see her race even though it wasn't a big one for her or anything.

I knew one of the other guys in my race, Ryan Murphy, he runs for George Mason now and he also works part time in Pacers Fairfax. Ryan is a real chill guy but also a very good runner. Four months ago there is no way I would have been able to hang with him or probably even be seeded in the same heat. But this time we were in the same heat and he told me that he was going to have some guys rabbit him through to try and go sub 3:50. I got a little nervous at this point but it was a little different from how I've felt in the past couple years before a race. It wasn't so much "Holy $H!T, I'm going to get burned", more just a feeling of excitement. Anyway, I go on the warm up, don't feel great but that's nothing new at this point. While I'm doing strides my hip still feels tight but I put it out of my mind and just think that its going to loosen up as the race goes on. We line up and the starter lets us know that we're going to have two rabbits, one will go through 800 at 2:01 and the 2nd will try to get through 1200 at 3:03. I get out the first 100m but settle in somewhere mid pack through the first 400m. I move up a couple spots going into 800m and probably come through around 2:05. I'm in about 5th or 6th coming into 1200m, with 300m to go I start trying to move on people. I close the gap on the guy in third (one of the guys I train with incidentally) and with a 100m to go I almost doubt I can catch him. Somehow I find a way to surge and come third. I ended up running 3:55.11. It was a good 10 second PR, and definitely something that had to happen. So while I'm psyched to break 4 minutes, I've still got a lot of work to do. I've got to work even harder now, because I've got at least another 10 seconds to drop.

I didn't call Coach after the race because I didn't think it was a big deal. I think he knew I could do that and he might even think I can go a good bit faster than that. He called me tonight and gave out to me a little bit for not calling. The big things he pointed out to me was I need to start doing everything I can to make my life less stressful. The cool thing is it seems like he thinks I could be a 3:45 guy, but I know that's going to take a ton of work. Until I do it, it's nothing. But I'm going to do everything I can to run that fast.

*sidenote...it felt really cool to have people there that I knew, it had been a longtime since I'd raced in front of people who weren't just my teammates.