Notes
Last year this was my worst executed race. This year I decided to train for it and made it a minor goal race and a building block to shifting over to 5Ks and 10Ks. Started running track workouts and did a couple shorter races to get used to the pain.
Training went well and I really thought I was dialing in what my fitness was. Plan was to run 78 quarters. That I did for the first two but failed on the third. I think I lost concentration due to passing on the outside on the corners. Not gonna blame the extra distance, just the lack of concentration which is my fault.
Had some gas left in the tank and cranked it home with my fastest quarter to 5:16. This was an 8 second improvement over last year but I really feel I could give it another go tomorrow for 5:12. If in a race, closer to 5:10. At least that's what I tell myself.
I ran 25th position on a team that was 25 minutes behind the winners so I had nobody to race when I ran. It was a pure time trial passing and weaving runners.
One more crazy thing. I've yet to actually race a mile. In HS I raced the 1500 usually finishing in the 4:40s or sometimes high 4:30s. And now I've raced 1600 twice. One of these days I should do the mile proper, hopefully in a race, not time trial, situation.
So, mostly happy with the effort other than the 4 lost seconds on lap 4. Felt great at the finish. Probably could have gone harder. Perhaps focusing on 78s was conservative? I wanted to feel like shit at the end. One of the kids on my team admitted to vomiting twice... I don't remember needing to catch my breath.