Land of the Kiwis A runner in New Zealand

Twice the Usual

Before I get down to business. I must mention one good thing has come from my blackberry debacle. Let's start with this:

Quick, say 7 digits out loud!

.

.

Well whatever you came up with, it probably had a sequence in there. And if you're a hot brunette trying to quickly ditch a over-zealous creepy guy (see right), you may be left saying something like, "Oh, my number? Why it's... 123... 1.. 34.. 7! Can't wait to hear from you!" And cackle all the way back to telling your girl friends how cute you are.

The number that I received for my Vodafone cell is... 123.1347. And as you've guessed by now, I have received a couple mysterious and sometimes funny txts. I then proceed to add to contacts as Poor Bloke1, Poor Bloke2, etc... I do that in the event that they call (and they have). At which point I let them down easy via txt. Anyways, it's Saturday night and I just sent this fellow a txt after he called. He responded, "Ouh. I'm S0ry." Drunk at 9:30? Standard...

So now the race of twice the usual distance, 3000m. I ran 53min yesterday to prep for it. Felt a bit fatigued but got this surge of adrenaline thinking that NCAAs would be the next day (today). That got me fantasizing about running 8:19 and just keep going to 5k. Hah! Anyways... who starts a race writeup talking about the day before? Oh yeah, I felt a bit fatigued.

So I woke up this morning and did my standard calf exercises but no morning run. Sat around passing the time 'til 10AM: Division III Indoor Champs kickoff with the mile. Connor was in the first heat and ran solid, qualifying onward. As the day progressed I started flipping between DI and DIII. Over the next 3 hours I got the chills watching the races and was incredibly pumped for mine!

Got to the track and warmed up for 15min followed by leg swings and drills and strides. I still felt a bit fatigued but I've felt the same before sooo many races. The good thing was my calves weren't knotted anymore (slowly working themselves out over the past few days). So I put on the victories and waited for the gun.

You'll have to excuse me, this writeup may be a bit scatterbrained as I'm watching the Phoenix vs. Sydney soccer game right now. So a bit distracted...

The gun goes off and immediately our pacer (Josh Van Dalen) went to the front. The target: 67s.

First lap: 66.high. Awesome.

Second lap 2:14. Nice. For these first two I was riding right on his shoulder, feeling strong and really expecting a harder time dealing with the paces. Made me get a bit close to him at times, each time forcing me to mentally relax, chop my stride, and stop tailgating so hard.

The 3rd lap felt perfect and we came through the 1k in 2:48 and the 1200 in 3:22. Unfortunately, this is where Josh pulled out with a "Sorry mate." I think his calf must have been bothering him a bit. Well I got the lead at that point and while Stefan had offered to try and take 400m after Josh pulled out, he was a step behind and I didn't want to fall off the pace at all so I took it at that point.

I don't know any other splits except 2k -- 5:36. So perfect 2:48 - 2:48. I had planned to start dropping the hammer here pre-race and maybe that was a bad thing because I went from feeling average with 1200 left, to feeling awful with 800m to go. I really felt like I should be kicking at that point. It was horrible. The result: I basically hung on to my stride for 600m and then couldn't muster the mental or physical effort (or both) to get on my toes and close hard. Plus I came through to the bell lap in 7:20 so I knew I wasn't going to hit my mental goal of 8:19. Anyways, I closed out the last lap in 70......... Hardly elite closing speed... For all you arts and humanities students out there: that's an 8:29.

Post-race I walked around for 12 minutes trying to stop my sides from aching before finally getting jogging. And I emphasize jogging. I was supposed to do a bit of a 45min tempo after the race but 10min in to cooldown I knew that wasn't in the cards. So 13min easy cooldown followed by 20min chat. Then 10min light jog home to watch the D1 DMRs.

About 30min later though, with some recoop food/lactate drain, I got back out and finished the session. 40min starting 6:30, finishing ~5:40 by best estimate. Done.

Thoughts afterwards are mixed. I certainly would like to be a bit faster on my own but... with the sun, and wind, and fatigue from the week, and leading over a mile... I'm not suicidal. New goal is to just break 3:50 at ITM though.

Later mates.