Notes
BRT#3 - raced the mile! In heat 2 of 4, the mile was the featured event tonight. Pretty perfect weather, it was a cool night and the wind had mostly died down by the end of the meet. Was very excited to be back racing on the track for the first time in quite a while, but wasn't really sure what to expect... I thought that I could break 4:40 based on history mostly, but none of my recent workouts had given me much confidence. Had what I thought was a pretty honest seed of 4:36.
Did a good job of relaxing on the starting line despite typical pre-race nerves, thought I had a good start but perhaps tucked in too early - by the end of the first curve I was pretty much in the back. It felt hard right away but I got my old habits of positive self-talk right back, told myself that I was o.k. and I could do this for 4 laps. Clock was off through the first lap so no idea where we were at, Brian told me to just race, I think at 600 I saw I was starting to get boxed and went pretty wide on the homestretch to get back with the main pack. At halfway I saw 2:20, I think everyone panicked a little and scattered out, all of a sudden I had a clear line in lane 1. Knew I wanted to go hard on lap 3 no matter what so I made a pretty big move and got up into 2nd place just staying on the rail. Was accelerating the whole way through the lap and with 300 to go it was time to take the lead and start the long drive home... but instead I pumped the brakes! Slowed down a bit and several people blew by me, I felt awful all of a sudden of course. Got some late pep from Brian on the home stretch and rallied pretty well, got several guys back to finish 4th in the heat, 2s off the leader.
Reasonably happy with the time, good effort in the race for not really knowing what I was doing, but ran this pretty stupidly. No reason to ever slow down with 300m to go in a mile... obviously I felt like I was in uncharted territory but should have just went for it and if I tied up at the end then so bet it. This should have been sub 4:35 & a heat win IMO... Oh well, still a very fun race. Excited to be back on the track next week! What will it be...
Decent warmup routine but FORGOT to take caffeine! So this could have been much better...
65.0 VDOT