A very long day today. I went to the Redmond HS track to do my workout but when I got there, discovered that they had just resurfaced it and it wasn't ready to be used yet. It looks like the nice new surface is extra squishy. Great for lower impact, terrible for speed. Oh well.
So I went back to work deciding to do my workout at the Shoreline Stadium track in Seattle later in the day where I was going to be volunteering at the final Club Northwest Allcomers Meet. Brooks was sponsoring this particular meet so there was a big push to get all the Brooks sponsored athletes to the meet so I agreed plus it turned out to be a good place to do my workout.
Shoreline is a pretty squishy track in its own right. The workout was 5x800m in 2:24s with 2:30 rest. On the first rep, my newness to this track showed in a big way. I took my 200m split at the wrong spot making my 200 split appear to be slow so I picked it up quite a bit only to cross the 400 in 68. Oops. Second lap I actually took the correct split and finished in 2:21. Oops. It was kind of funny. The rest were in 2:24. Good workout but it still feels like hitting these times are harder right now than it should be.
Anyway, did a quick cooldown to get in 10 miles which is all I had time for before my volunteering duties took over.
I was invited several weeks ago to compete with a bunch of training mates to run in a very competitive (sub 31:00) 10,000m this night. That was the plan until I got hurt a few weeks ago so I backed out not feeling prepared to truly compete. Smart decision.
However, spending that much time in an evening at the track and not competing at all is not really in my DNA. So despite already having done my workout for the day I jumped into two events. The first was a "jogger's mile" which is a mile where each participant has to predict their finishing time and the one closest to their predicted time wins a free paor of shoes. So I guessed a pretty easy 5:40. Why 5:40? Because the 10-year-old who had just finished the Kid's one mile jog did it in 5:41. I had to run faster than him right? By the way, this same kid was 3rd place in the event at this year's Junior Nationals.
Well, the kid was in the adult race too. No pressure. Oh...I failed to mention that you are not allowed to wear watches or any timing devices. In fact, they turn off the clock after the first lap so all you have is a 400m split to go off of. I ended up finishing in 5:30. I wish all miles felt that easy.
The second event was the 1500m. It had been almost 20 years since I last competed in a 1500m race. Weird distance. It was a blast though. With a lap to go, I was in second with some young college/high school dude ahead of me. I decided I was close enough to try and catch him. Things looked pretty good for that with 100m to go but in those final moments, i smartly backed off not wanting to have another injury in a meaningless event. I probably could have caught him but at what potential cost? Wasn't worth it so I coasted in to the finish in a time of 4:25. 13 seconds off my high school PR but it was a blast to run. I know I could PR in this if I wanted to. Maybe next year I will try it again with the intent of running it hard.
BTW...I ran these events in a sweet new Brooks shoe...the Launch. It's a racing/training hybrid. If you are a neutral runner -- which I am not -- and you don't like racing in true racers and despise running in trainers, then this shoe is for you. Plus it looks very cool and isn't that really what matters? It's a very soft shoe and extremely light. I absolutely love it. I won't be able to use it for training because of the lack of support, but I will likely use it for longer tempo runs.
So I walked away from the meet tonight reenergized and healthy. I was pretty happy with my 1500m and it felt WAY easier than the 800m reps I was doing a couple of hours earlier which had me much more optimistic about my fitness level.
By the way, Uli Steidl won the 10,000m in 30:58...one second slower than my 10,000m in April at the WWU Invite.
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