The Pros and Cons of Breathing...

Saturday I went up to Morgan State to run my first 1500 in over a year. I'd been feeling like crap the whole week mostly due to the lack of sleep I'd been getting. I let myself have way too many things on my mind that week and wasn't focusing on the small things (like getting enough sleep) to be really ready for the race. The workout on Tuesday went ok, but I felt like shit from the start. Thursday was fine but it was just 200's so if it had gone badly I would have had ample reason to be concerned about how Saturday would go.

Anyway, I go up to AU the morning of the race to take one of the guys on the team up there with me. I figure its the least I can do to help out whenever I can with the team. Ride up with Ryan was fine, didn't get lost which was the major concern seeing as the school is in some random part of Baltimore. We beat the team up there so we just check in and hang out for a little while. I get to see the heat sheets when we arrive and I'm in the first of two heats. The fact that me and only two of the AU kids are in that heat lets me know I just missed the cut off for the "fast" heat. I only have myself to be pissed with though because I chose to seed myself at 3:58, I should have seeded myself at 3:55 to make sure I was in the fast heat. While looking over the heat sheets I also notice that there are two heats of the Women's 1500 which is the event before mine so I factor that into my warm up.

All of us running the 1500 go for the warm up together, but by the time we come back we're seeing the end of the Women's 1500, which normally would be fine but they had combined both heats into one. This meant that they intended to start the Men's 1500 20 minutes ahead of schedule. Luckily, Bridget convinced them to wait (she had significant pull too seeing as the majority of the runners there for the 1500 were AU kids). As we line up for the first heat I realize that the one guy who was seeded ahead of me has scratched from the race. So I'm lined up on the inside, as the gun goes off I make sure to get out a little bit so I'm not trapped in the back but I expect one of the other guys in the heat to take the lead. To my surprise I'm in the lead from the gun without much work at all. As I come through 300m I have a bad flashback to a race my sophmore year at Duke where I took out the first two laps of a 5k because I thought I was that much better than everyone in my heat...I ended up dying horribly. I come through the 400 at 64 feeling really smooth though. I don't look back but at 600m's in I can tell I'm entirely alone (later all the AU guys told me I had a 20 to 30m lead on the rest of the field from the 400m mark on). I tried to turn it into a time trial, but for some reason it was hard as hell to breath, I had cotton mouth the whole way. Legs felt fine but breathing was horrible, I managed to run 4:05 by myself. It wasn't a great race and I know I let sub 4 get away from me. The things I took away from the race were, I always have to be prepared to lead from the gun, I need to work on staying mentally sharp when I do run on my own, and 4:05 (a 3 sec PR) felt comfortable.

Tomorrow its back to work; over the next few weeks I'm going to try and race a lot (probably even throwing a road race in there....GW PARKWAY), hopefully its all going to pay off.

progress....

Today's workout: 8 by 200 at 31 with flats, then mile jog, then 800m time trial.

Coach called me right when I got up to AU, said I was going to do 4-6 200's with the guys and then do a 800 at race pace. Went on my warm up, felt ok but not great. Got in with a good group of the milers and we went through the motions of 31 second 200's. The nice thing was they felt really easy never had to push to make sure we were hitting the pace.

Jason and I were the only ones who did 8 of them, then coach had me do a mile run, put my spikes on and do a 800. He held one of the guys back to lead my through 400m and told me to follow him no matter what he did. Well, after doing the 200's I knew what 31 felt like so to be working harder than that in the first 150m meant we were well under 30 seconds for the first 200. The kid calmed down though and we came through the 400 at 62.5. Coach had wanted me to come through at about 64-65, but he just calmly told me to maintain this through the second 400. I ended up pulling a little negative split and running 2:03 for 800. Good thing was it never felt like I had to hammer to do it, I definitely pushed at 50m's to go but wasn't in my last gear at all. Coach seemed pretty pleased, and said I should race next weekend up at Morgan State. I'll have to figure out how I'm getting up there but I feel really good about the idea of racing.

not racing

After the Tuesday workout (3 sets of 800, 300: 2:20-2:12 for the 8's, 47-45 for the 3's, then mile run, then 6,4,3,2,1..62 through 400 of the 6, 59 for the 4, 42 for the 3, and 28 for the 2) I talked to Coach about racing the 1500 at Bucknell the following weekend. At the time Coach seemed to think it was a good idea. However, after the workout on Thursday (6 by 300 at 46-45...one was at 43) Coach reconsidered and told me to hold off on racing.

It hadn't been a great week already due to some other stuff going on, so when I heard this it took me a little while not to see the negative in Coach's decision. At first, I started thinking that I'd been having good workouts, I'm really itching to race why the hell is Coach telling me NOT to race? Does he think I'm not tough enough or really in good shape? Should I doubt how I feel fitness-wise? And then I thought about it a little more. Sure I've come a long way from my fitness in January when finishing 8 400's at 70 pace was a struggggle. But, if I've done that in 3 months, how much further along can I get with another month's worth of training? I shouldn't be in a rush just to race for the sake of racing. I should be getting as fit and as mentally ready to race as I possibly can, so that when I do come to the line I'm really ready to go. I'm not in a situation where I have to race myself into shape. There is a certain amount of maturity, or belief in a philosophy, that you have to bring to your running when working with Coach. Especially as a post-collegiate, Coach isn't going to be checking up on you all the time. But I have to believe that if I do what I need to do, and follow what Coach says, he'll hold up his end of the deal.

That isn't to say that if I follow exactly what Coach tells me to do that all of sudden I'm going to be a sub 4 minute miler or anything of that sort. However, I got enough faith in the training, and Coach, that my chances of doing something better than I've ever done is possible. Maybe that's what I missed up till now, just a little bit of faith.

On a side note, It was a solid Irish/Pacers one, two at the first of 5 Crystal City 5k's. Wade rocked out, taking home the win in 15:44 in considerably windy conditions. Second was Edmund Burke in 16:02; guess those track workouts with Coach have been paying off. Make sure to check out the rest of these 5k's .

600m..and then the biggest let down 200m

So I went up to the University of Maryland to race the 800 this weekend. Big thanks to Chris and Kathy for letting me borrow the car so I could get up there.

This was the first time I've raced unattached at a college meet, and it was definitely weird. I didn't have anyone there with me, I warmed up on my own, didn't hear anything from a coach before the race and didn't have any teammates or friends there to yell at me during the race.

Anyway, felt kinda nervous for the first time all week during the warm up. I got sort of worried that I was going to disappoint coach unless I did really well. Felt alright during the warm up, couldn't time the length that well because the meet was running 30-45 minutes ahead of schedule which is virtually unheard of, generally they are running behind. I was seeded in the 2nd of 3 heats, watched the 1st heat and it was definitely slow, guys were running 2:15. My heat gets called and of the 16 guys who are supposed to be in it only about 10-12 of them line up. We line up and the gun goes off. Of course with my luck the guy next to me goes down in the first 5 meters and we get called back to the line. I take a stride, then come back to the line. This time we get away cleanly. I start off in 7th or 8th but by 200m I'm sitting in 4th and it felt effortless. I just cruised up on people's shoulders and moved up, by the 400m we were at 56-57 and I was sitting in 3rd. Still felt really smooth at this point and was just waiting to get to the 600m mark to kick. We hit the 600m mark in 1:26-27, and I'm getting excited to go, I'm still in it at the bend but then all of a sudden we hit the last 100m and I start rigging....and I mean bad. Everything locked up, I just couldn't get anything going with my legs. I end up finishing 5th or 6th.

I was soooooo pissed afterwards. I just don't know what happened on that bend. I had set the race up perfectly, giving myself the best opportunity to win the heat. And instead of killing the last 200m, I ran like I had been shot in both quads by a sniper. Sure I pr'd which is cool I guess, but the thing that gets me about it is, I knew I could win this race. And I didn't. I let it go, I couldn't get myself to get across that line quite fast enough.

But Tuesday its back to work and I'm hoping this 800 has busted the rust off my racing legs. I'm going to make it a different story at Bucknell in a couple weeks. And until then I'm going to be shutting up about what I'm going to do, until I do it.

outside of running...

Not to get too runner geek here but to quote the Prefontaine movie, Without Limits, "many consider running to be an absurd pasttime." And honestly, the masses may be entirely right. I mean if you think about it, only a very tiny percentage of the people who have been running since high school end up running in college. Then from there you've got an even smaller amount who decide to run post collegiately. And then you take into account that out of this minuscule pool of people that decide to train seriously after college, there are only going to be a handful of people who ever get sponsored and become professional runners.

So the question that obviously has to be asked is...why the hell am I still running?

As a runner I've never done anything close to exceptional. I was a slightly better than average high school runner, and a less than stellar college athlete. And while I'm definitely in better shape than I ever was (save maybe the first month of my senior year in cross country) in college, and being coached by arguably one of the best coaches in the country/world, what am I going to amount to in terms of running? You don't just magically overnight become a great runner. And as much as running is about the effort you put in, at a certain point it comes down to what you were born with. I guess I just haven't ever found out exactly where that limit is.

Maybe I'm living in a pipe dream scenario, but I keep thinking I've got a lot more in me then I've ever put down in a result in a race. Do I think I'm capable of going under 3:50 in the 1500? Definitely. But I've never done it, and thats another part of running. Until you've done it, its just a thought, a question left out there thats still waiting to be answered.

There's another reason I'm lucky to be running right now. Its the only thing thats keeping me fairly sane. I know that every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, I'll be given a chance to put myself through something that a lot of people wouldn't ever dream of doing. And no matter how screwed up I might be feeling or how many things might not have gone my way, for those few hours it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. All that matters is that I step on the track and come across the line of every single interval.

First race is next weekend, an 800 at the University of Maryland. I kind of wanted a few people to be there but for a variety of reasons, they can't make it. This is a complete 180 from high school when I would have paid people not to come watch (this was a time in my life where winning or at least coming in the the top 3 in a race wasn't a ridiculous notion at all, weird how kids can be in high school right?) . I guess part of it is I miss people coming to watch me just for the sake of being there and the other part is maybe deep down I'm a bit of a show off ha. Ah well its the first one, its a rust buster, its just to get the feel of being on the track racing again. But I'd be kidding myself if I didn't want to blow the doors of some people.

8:45pm workout, not as much fun as it sounds

Today was supposed to be a relatively simple Tuesday in terms of workouts. Woke up in the morning did a four mile cutdown, starting at 6 minute pace and ending around 5:15 pace. Then go to work until 8:15pm or so and do 12 by 200m with 200 jog afterwards.

Of course, nothing is quite as simple as it seems. 12 by 200 doesn't sound like that much, but when its your second workout of the day after being on your feet all day it does add a certain degree of difficulty to the equation. Add in that you didn't get off work until roughly 8:30pm (yes, its only 15 minutes but it makes a BIG difference), and all of sudden you've got yourself a workout that seems like its going uphill both ways.

Anyway, after getting my warm up in I proceed to go through with the idea of running 30 second 200's with a 200m jog inbetween. Inbetween the 6th and 7th 200m I would take a 400m jog and then begin the second set. I start off and I'm literally the only one on the track. Cross the line in 30 seconds flat feeling like I just closed out a 10 mile race. An auspicious start to a workout if ever I've had one. I somehow make it through the remaining 5 of them all just under 30 at 29.5. I take the 400m jog which just basically feels like a slow 200m jog its over before I know it. For the second set I proceed to tell myself that each one is going to be my last one if I don't make it across the line in 30 or below. Well I made it through all of them at 29 mid to low and then take the short cool down back to the house.

Couple weeks ago probably would have bagged it, but ever since Coach asked me "How good do you want to be son" (asked is maybe a mild understatement), I've been thinking a lot about it. And what it comes down to is I want to stop thinking and talking about how cool it would be to go some of the big meets. I want to actually go to them and compete. Well not only compete, but get in there and surprise some people.

After finishing undergrad everything hasn't gone to plan for me; in reality I didn't picture myself being where I am doing what I'm doing at all. First couple months I bummed out about it. Now I'm starting to see the opportunities its giving me. I've got my whole life to make big plans and do big things in the 'adult' world. Which I'm definitely going to do, not a doubt in my mind. But, how often am I going to get a chance to be coached by a guy who has forgotten more about running then I'll ever know, and get to work with people who are not only like family but are so passionate about what they do? I guess what it's teaching me is there is always something to be gained from experiences, no matter if they're ones you planned on or not.

SIDENOTE: Get excited for the flying Irishman (Wade) to be updating everyone on his triathalon training!

I swear, I'll try to be better about this...

I know my seriously devoted readers have just been distraught by my lack of blogging in the last couple weeks but I've been wrapped up in other stuff. Between running and work, the time I have to myself is usually spent recovering. I'm managing to make it work though.

The last couple weeks I've started to feel just that little bit more confident with my running. For instance, this last Saturday I had a workout up at AU that a couple months ago I would have had a real tough time getting through. It was supposed to be a 2 mile in 10:10 then 3 mile light tempo and then back to the track for 200's. 2 mile was done in 10:03 and definitely could have either closed faster than that or could have kept going for another mile no problem. 200's were done starting at 31 and going down to 29. In all it was at least 11 miles worth of work. My only downfall in the workout was not doing "enough" 200's. Coach hadn't said how many 200's to do so I did 6 because that is what we had normally been doing at the end of workouts. Evidently Coach thought I should have done 8. He had his own way of pointing it out, but the important thing is he was wanting me to think about my training. Its a different approach from how I have been coached in the past but if you think about it, it really makes sense. If you can't do 8 200's with rest, how are you going to run 8 straight with no rest? Its just another way Coach makes you better, he wants you thinking rather than just telling you how to do it.

He's off this week and he didn't give me any workouts for the week so I'm going to just do ones we have done in the past. Tomorrow is going to be 4 by 800 starting at 2:20 and then a 3 mile run, followed by 6 by 300. It was a sort of tough workout last time so I'm hoping with the improved fitness that I'll feel a little bit more controlled this time. Might even try and call Coach and let him know how it went...