Notes
Coe Track Meet. Not exactly what I was hoping for but not terrible either. The wind was still pretty rough and I led the first couple of laps to try to get the pace going. I did alright for the first lap (65) but then wasn't really feeling very good already on the second lap and slowed more than I expected (68). A couple of guys went around me at this point and I was able to stick with them fine. We ran the next lap together (77) before everyone started taking off with 300 to go. I was behind one guy that didn't start to kick so I lost a few steps on the two leaders right away but started rolling them up as we went into the turn. They got into a race of their own on the homestretch though and I was making up ground a little slower. One of them ended up pulling away but I was able to get the other at the line (46). I was pretty disappointed to hear the time but I also knew it wasn't going to be a 4 flat day going into the meet. I was hoping to be a little closer to 4:05 though even with the wind and leading. Apparently I'm just not nearly as good at leading this year as I have been the past couple of years. So even though it makes sense it wasn't a very fast race, and I'm glad I fought for 2nd and still was close to winning, it was the slowest 1500 I've run since junior year of college. Not to say that I have run a ton of them but a 4:03 last year was the slowest I had run and that was due to a slow start as well. I'm hoping switching from racing Saturday to Sunday had a little bit to do with it as well. I stretched my week to 7 days of running for the first time in a long time and didn't take an easy 5 mile day before the race because I wanted to get in some solid mileage this week. I think that left me a little more tired than I usually am for a race. And I was feeling really good yesterday when I had initially planned on racing. I think I need to focus on eating and drinking more before the race too. I had one of my race hangovers the rest of the night that included one of the worst headaches I've had.
Overall it was a decent starting point but I'm hoping I can run much faster next weekend to get some confidence for the rest of the season.