There's more to life than running

While a good majority of this blog tends to deal with running, I'm the first to recognize that there is life outside of running (or at least not entirely related to running). The other purpose of this blog was to track the exploits of that infamous Chris Farley character.

Well this past weekend at the GW Parkway Classic, Chris took a big step...He asked Kathy to marry him in front of everyone at the race. I couldn't be happier for the two of them and I only hope I get the invite to the wedding haha.

blazinnnnnn...

Evidently the recent weather in the DC metro area has decided to give us a preview of what working out in the middle of July is going to be like. On Saturday a few us did a 1200 time trial at the AU track. It was definitely in the 80's during the workout which is considerably warmer than it has been. The plan was to hit 3:07-3:09 (basically 62.5 for the quarters). We came through the first 400 at 60, Slicko then took the lead to try and calm it down but relaxed a little too much and we hit 66 (still through the 800 in 2:06 so not too bad), we closed in 59 high for a 3:06. Felt pretty smooth the whole way even though the pace was a little erratic. We did 6 by 200 in 30 afterwards and called it a day.

Slicko and I came back Sunday to make sure Pacers got represented in the GW Parkway 5k. Weather was in the upper 80's. I actually felt pretty decent considered we had time trialed the day before and I had only got 3 hours of sleep that night (thanks Jimmy). I planned on treating it like a cut down because I didn't expect much competition. Slicko and I sat on some guys for the first 400-800m (hard to tell in a road race), and then I decided to break from the pack because we were crawlllling. First mile in 5:25, 2nd in 5:13, last one was sub 5, Slicko put a little push in there and came across the line first. Ran quite a bit afterwards and then worked the store for the rest of the day.

Today (Tuesday), showed up to the track and it was about 90 degrees. Didn't know what I was going to do (shocker I know) but heard from the AU guys that the plan was 2 by 400 followed by 4 by 200. I figured we would be doing something like that because the AU guys have conference this weekend. Coach must have been in a good mood today because he looked at the guys I was working out with and said, "Mark, this looks like a good group for you to be leading the whole thing." So, we set off and hit 62.5 for the first and 63.5 for the second. Everyone else goes off to do 200's but Coach just tells me to keep doing 400's. At this point I know better than to ask how many. I then proceed to pick it up a little bit and hit 60 point and then 59 point. After five of them coach asks me what I'm hitting and tells me to slow down. I hit the next one in 64, a little too slow. I finally hit the last one in 62 right on pace. I then do 3 laps jog and come back for 200's. I hit the first one a little fast in 28. I calm down and hit the following 4 in anywhere from 30.3 to 29.2. After five Coach asks me if they feel easy. This is sort of dangerous ground because you never really know what you should say, I ended up saying I felt comfortable. Coach then says that he wants to see me do a 300 at the same sort of pace. I take off into the wind a little bit and just try to stay smooth. Come through the line at 42.5. Coach seemed really happy with the workout.

Three good efforts in four days. I'm definitely getting better but it was funny today, I never got that excited that I was doing well. I could have some of the greatest workouts ever, but until I do something in a race it doesn't really mean all that much. The good thing that the workouts are giving me is some confidence to get out there and race all out. I swear I've been on a roller coaster this last month, one minute I'm up and the next I'm freakin' out or bummed about something. The one thing I'm trying to keep constant is my training. I figure if I can at least control that then I have a shot at figuring everything else out.

The song below is what was going through my head during the workout....

C Farley runs 4:51...next stop sub 4:30

The end of week time trials kicked off today (4/23) with the infamous Chris Farley going after the sub 5 minute mile. Chris is planning on going after the sub 4:30 mile in August so today was going to be used as a bench mark to determine how far off he was at this point. At this point in his training Chris hasn't done any speed work at all and has been running a ridiculous amount of "junk" mileage (check out Chris' Blog Running My Life for the definition of junk miles).

Chris enlisted me to pace him through a 5 minute mile. I decided that in order for this to really go down we needed to turn it into a little bit more of an event than just Chris going around the track four times in under 5 minutes. So, I told Slicko aka Scott Anderson (Pacers Racing team guy, man has gone under 3:40 for the 1500) about the attempt. He was all for it and decided to help out with the pacing duties as well.

Of course, I couldn't just leave it at that, we had to get some more people involved. Seeing as this whole sub 4:30 mile thing started with the idea of Chris training with Julie (Culley), she had to be there. She showed up, camera and all, just to get some great pics with even better captions (such as the Pacers...got to love double entendre) . The fun didn't stop there though, we did the time trial at Chris' old high school and who should be there but his high school coach. To round it out we had his big bro Brian "Billy" Farley, out there as the official timer.

Slicko and I decided to trade off leads, I would take the 1st and 3rd quarters and Slicko would get the 2nd and 4th, leading Chris out to kick it in. Slicko and I had just done a workout an hour or two before so we were already pretty loose. I take the first 200m's through in 35 secs, a little fast but nothing that is going to kill the attempt. We come through the 400m at 73-74, Slicko takes the lead and we come through 800m at 2:28-2:29. With a big negative split in the second half Chris comes through at 4:51. Not bad for a guy who was talking like he wasn't going to break 5:10.

It was great seeing Chris get that excited about the run. Today was one of those days were I felt kind of lucky to be a part of Pacers. I mean I get to train with some great guys, and an awesome Coach. And I get to work with some pretty cool people too. Its not always the "easy" life but its definitely a lot better than hating every single day of work. Anyway, congrats to Chris and I guess we'll see that sub 4:30 mile at the Supernova Classic in August.

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.