Notes
An excellent race, and I feel extremely happy about it.
It is .1 seconds of my PR from my junior year at Luther (went back and checked my PR rocks, the official records of course). I haven't touched a 1500 even close to as fast as that since that year, and I'm thrilled.
Warm-up was about 2 miles with some tempo and race pace picks ups thrown in there. My legs didn't feel fantastic on the warm-up, but they didn't feel terrible either. I've raced enough races to know it is absolutely impossible to judge how a race is going to go based on the warm-up, so I wasn't concerned.
When I checked in I was given hip number 1. That surprised me, so I risked a quick glance at the start list and saw a few others with seed times around 4:40 or even 4:38 or 4:39. That made me feel a little better. I was hoping my seed time of 4:45 wasn't the fastest one, as I was interested in running faster than that and was not interested in doing much work to do so. When I checked in I specifically asked the official it the meet was on a fixed schedule, and she said yes it was. The race would start at 1:10pm as scheduled. When I got to the track with my spikes I saw ladies lining up at the 1500 start and heard a 2nd and final call for the women's 15. WTF?!? I threw my spikes on and jogged over to the line to ask the starter if this was the women's 1500 and of course, he said yes. And, of course, they were running their heats fast to slow, so I was supposed to be on the line now. He said "ya, it looked like people were ready so we just decided to go for it". I wanted to say "immmmmm, the whole idea of a fixed time schedule is that you DONT do that! Idiot..... But I didn't." I asked if I could have 60 seconds to take off my warm-ups because I was in this heat. And his reply was "sure, thats fine, we're starting early".
Ya i realize that. Thanks for the news flash buddy.
Stripped off my warm-ups and jogged to the start line. While they were talking I did a few jumps, fast butt kicks, and high knees, and that was it. No strides, no stretching, no nothing. Finished jogging to the track after my 2 mile warm-up and pick ups, grabbed my spikes and threw them on, and it was go time. Not exactly your ideal pre-race schedule, but whatever, I didn't let it bother me. I'm confident on the track, I know my way around the track, I know when I'm fit, and I wasn't going to let a lack of strides or stretching throw me off. I sized up the few girls next to me and decided I could beat them, I threw my watch down on the infield, the starter said runners to your mark, and then we were off.
I was in position 1 so it wasn't difficult for me to get out hard and get directly to the rail. A few girls got out hard and took to the front right away. Perfect, I don't plan to do any work. Pace felt just about right, certainly not slow, but not too fast either, and I ran along the rail for the first 300m. I would guess I was in about 6th when we crossed the finish line for the first time. A small pack of us up front, and then a bit of a string behind me. We came through the 400 and my split was 75. Just about perfect, and I was really happy that it didn't feel too fast. Over the next 600m a couple girls came around me and went out towards the pack in front. I bet I was around 8th with 800m to go. I wasn't moving up in the field, but the front of the race wasn't getting any farther away from me, and I was running right on the inside as opposed to some others who were out in lane 2 and 3, so I was quite pleased. Still plenty of time and no need to worry yet about being boxed in. With 800 to go the group started to move a bit. I simply made sure I was at the back of the lead pack, and as girls fell off I stayed attached. I had no desire to be leading the chase pack or get caught somewhere in no man's land. With 400 to go I was in about 5th, and the two girls at the front began to push just a bit more. There was a definite speed change, but nobody threw down any ridiculous move, it was a pretty gradual acceleration. At 300 to go I broke out form the rail and started to move. One chick in front of me was breathing quite hard and I knew she was hurting, so I went around her and found myself about 5m behind the leaders. At 200 to go I didn't feel like I had a dramatic gear change I could go to, but I wasn't dying either. I passed another girl before the finish line 200m later, and ended up 3rd in 4:40.
I am thrilled with it. In proud of my middle laps and especially my movement between 400 and 200 to go, as that is often times where I lose momentum, and I'm pleased with my last 200 for it being early-mid april. Those last 200, will come over the next month or so, and hopefully I'll get another shot at a 1500 in May.
I don't know what my splits were other than a 75 the first lap, but I was told we were ridiculously consistent, so I would imagine they were all right about that.
I bet I could have gotten 2 more seconds out of my middle laps today, and that is exciting. And I bet I can find a few more in the next 5 weeks. I think that 4:35 benchmark would be pretty cool to hit, and I think it just might be in the cards. We'll see.