Today was perfect for the track! Overcast skies, slight breeze, and around 70 degrees. No one ran me off today either! So I warmed-up, did a few stretches, and went after a new mile best. My strategy was to take the first 400 a little slower and have something left for a kick. The first lap was surprisingly slow? 1:50.44. I tried to pick it up, I felt awful? I seriously considered stopping. A 1:47.36- second 400. So I kept running, a 1:54.62 third 400, here I felt a little better and tried to push it, a 1:52.65 fourth 400 for a 7:25.07 mile. That is much slower than the last track mile? Today I had better conditions but felt worse? Is my training causing me fatigue? All systems were go but the time was slow....go figure?
Anyway, right on the heels of this mile (one lap rest) I did a 4x400 with one lap rest interval. here are the splits-1:59.93, 1:43.17, 1:57.80, 1:39:31. Note: The last one was an all out 400. Maintained good form the whole time, stretched real good afterwards.
Total miles-4.64.
Observations:
1) I am learning pacing by running on the track-
2) Racing a mile can teach us about ourselves, and also is a microcosm of the marathon in many ways. Try it and see what I mean, you can't start too fast or too slow, you feel like quitting, you learn to hold on and find a second wind and then you have to dig down deep to finish strong.
3) We are a very rare breed that run and train in order to do the best we possibly can.
Keep running and racing!! I'm playing a Bluegrass Festival this weekend...but next weekend I race!! Peace.
4 comments:
Maybe you were subconsiously holding back, knowing you had the 400s coming up? Still, a strong mile!
I have been disappointed with all of my track times so far. I feel like I am capable to much faster times but can't seem to do it on the track.
Try try again??
I love running on the track. It brings me back to my glory days back in high school and college when I ran middle distance races.
Yes, running on the track can help you with pacing. But you also have a Garmin now. Use the average pace feature and try running with it not changing pace.
Bluegrass Festival sounds fun! I love track workouts. They seem to go by so fast because I'm just thinking about the set that I'm running and the whole workout is a shorter distance. I can never figure out why some days I'm fast and sometimes slow. Oh, well...
Great way to relate running a mile to the marathon - I will keep that in mind when I hit the track this week!
Where was the blue grass festival? We went and watched quite a bit of blue grass at the Acoustic Music Festival in Carthage, MO this weekend - pretty entertaining!
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