Land of the Kiwis A runner in New Zealand

ITM

The International Track Meet. Now there's a pretty intimidating title for an event (and like all formal titles, only the acronym was whispered in conversation). Indeed, ITM was advertised as one of the best meets to grace NZ since the '95 Commonwealth Games. In fact, on paper, the directors were lauding the best 800m field in 20 years. With Willis, Risley, and and a couple more sub-1:47 guys, you could only expect fireworks in the race.

I had been targeting this meet since January, when I first worked out my racing schedule for NZ. However, in the month of February I kinda struggled, working on my stride and rehabing some withered calf muscles. During that time I let that meet slip from my mind. Then, two weeks ago, everything started clicking. My new stride felt bouncy and fresh, and I was ripping up my tempos. The week culminated in a fall in an 800m race around the 600m mark. I was through in 1:25 and feeling explosive. I didn't even bother writing it up but, I'm certain I was going to be close to my PR of 1:52. "Ah well." I thought, "I'm gonna kill these next 2 weeks and dominate ITM." Immediately I phoned up the meet director and weasled my way into the meet, citing my workouts of late and promising a near-PR performance in the mid 3:40s.

However, since that magical week things have been less than stellar... I had to take a few days easy after the 800 because my calves were just one big knot. And since then, I've just been struggling with general fatigue. I've never had such a rapid turnaround in general energy level week to week. So leading up to ITM, I was more than a little nervous and it caused me to put top priority on just feeling fresh again. I only ran 15 miles in the 4 days leading up to the meet and only one easy workout, 6x200m. It had the desired effect. My fatigue broke on the day of the meet. For the first time in 2 weeks I didn't whimper at the thought of bounding upstairs or jumping over a bench.

QEII

The QEII stadium environment was a lot more impressive this time than when I ran a local 5k back in December; there were cameras and tents all over the place and almost 2000 people in the stands. Warming up, I was grateful to feel my strides flow crisply and not tire my legs. It allowed me to actually think about the race and not my conditioning. That said, the gameplan going into the race was always the same. The pacemaker was instructed to push 2:27 through 1000m, a pace I have no business running right now and so the plan was to hang on the back of the pack. Draft and stay out of trouble for 1200m and see what happens in the last 300. Try and pick off as many stragglers as possible.

With a simple gameplan, a long stride, and some confidence that I wouldn't embarrass myself, I toed the line. Gun went off and I was immediately blown away! I think every racer got out to a 14s 200m and I nestled down second to last.

Lap 1 - 60

Lap 2 - 62

Lap 3 - 61.5

I was DFL entering the last lap and the time to move to put myself in the race had come and gone. The upside of running like such a wimp was that I was able to call another gear for the back stretch of the last lap, taking down 3 people (who had presumably raced harder in the early stages) in the process. On the home stretch, I wasn't able to get high on my toes and my kick floundered in the last 50m, just like it always does. However, I had closed in 43 and put myself through the line in 3:48.3, a time that has given me some confidence that I can compete on the elite level again. The kick will come with more calf rehab and future plyometrics. I'm just grateful to have spared myself embarrassment. Not the mindset I want to have very much, but this was definitely a race that was tailored towards the southern runners that are peaking at the end of a season, aka not me.

Looking ahead, I'll float for the next week before NZ nationals before getting back into the grind. At that point, all eyes on June in the States and hopefully some new PRs.