Notes
Mount Mercy 1500. I apparently took my time getting ready for this race and ended up only having my spikes on for 3-4 minutes before getting ready to lineup. Then it was a quick gun as well so everything just felt rushed getting going. But then the first lap felt quite comfortable and I was a bit surprised no one was going faster. I still just tucked in at the back but I probably should have worked my way up to the front more when I realized we weren't going very fast. 300 in 51 which is about 68 second pace so it wasn't as slow as I thought. Then people started to pick it up the second lap but no one really went crazy. I tried to work my way around one or 2 guys but they usually responded. Still had everyone pretty close through the 700 (66.8) and then I let a little gap show up in front of the guy in front of me and just didn't respond fast enough to chase it. I seem to not have a lot of switching gears right now so it was difficult for me to make the pass and then I just couldn't bring the group back. It sill wasn't a big gap though as checking results shows I was only 1-2 seconds back of the leaders at 1100 (67.9). And starting the last lap I felt tired but I still thought I felt good enough to pick it up. Unfortunately, feeling like I should be able to pick it up and actually doing it is pretty tough right now. So I stayed fairly close through the next 200 and then just slowly lost ground as everyone kicked. One guy also passed me back and I couldn't even change gears to race him. It feels like 33s must be maxing out my legs. Last lap was another (67.3) so not bad but basically the same pace I ran throughout the race.
So I ran a pretty even paced 4:33 equivalent which is better than I ran for indoors this year or last year and basically equivalent to my second 1500 in 2022. The only downside was that it was a small tightly packed heat with only 8 runners and a 8 second spread for seed times so it was a really good opportunity to get drug along to a little faster. I wonder if that is part of the problem though. I'm consistently worried about people going after times faster than there seed times and not wanting to get pulled out too fast so I just hang at the back and never really get into race mode. This race was basically won in the top seed time and I probably should have put in more effort to race up front a little more.
I do feel like the extra miles at least are paying off for strength. I didn't feel like I could kick much faster but I also didn't feel that the ~67 pace was too fast during the race or like I was struggling at any point. I also felt much better for a cool down than I normally feel and basically cruised sub 7 pace for the last 2 miles of the cool down feeling quite good. Overall not a bad day, and while I think 4:10/sub 4:30 equivalent would be difficult, I do think I'm in roughly that kind of shape.