Notes
Simpson 1500. Not exactly the time I was hoping for but not bad either. I was racing on just a couple of days recovery after the Grand Blue Mile but my legs actually felt good going into the race. I was in the second heat due to a pretty loaded event.
I really screwed myself from the get go. I've become much better at getting off the line into a good spot to start but in this race I got smoked and ended up in the middle of the pack. At this point the pack was a couple lanes wide and getting to the rail basically forced me to wait to get spit out the back of the pack before I could move up on the outside. I think I was in last at the 400m mark which was a 68 that really frustrated me. No PR would be happening today with that kind of start. But I was still determined to compete so I started moving up the outside. The pack was still together from the average to slower pace so I had to run a lot of the next two laps in lane 2 and 3. The next couple of laps were quite a bit quicker and probably would have been really solid split if I were running in lane 1. Lap 2 was a 65. From 500 to 400 to go I finally got to the front of the pack and just 1 guy was ahead of me as we hit the bell. We started to crank it up and from 300 to go it was an all out foot race and the rain started to come down really hard again. Lap 3 was a 64. I had great turnover and even focused on form down the homestretch but wasn't able to bring back the ~1 meter lead the guy had on me. Nutmeg had my last 300 as a 42 which is probably one of my fastest finishes ever, and I was still able to pull off a 4:03 after that terrible start and running a lot of the race outside of lane 1.
Some positive takeaways from the race but it was obvious I wasn't quite ready for a 1500 when I stepped to the line. Based on the addition of the splits I think they all would have had to be pretty high splits in order to add the few seconds to get to 4:03 but I'm still really happy with the final two laps. On Tuesday I got out in a 2:04 and today I probably closed in close to a 2:04. I think if I would have had a better first lap and been toward the front of the field in 65 I could have still run the the rest of the race the same and been under 4. I'm not sure I will get another chance at a 1500 this year but I definitely think I could cut off 4-5 seconds in a good race.
Interesting note that this is only my 4th 1500 since college, especially considering all the indoor miles I have run. That means this is my slowest 1500 since junior year.