Notes
Dartmouth Indoor Classic 3k. Seeded 1st in the 2nd heat, feeling confident that I was in PResque shape but first 3k of the season so we'll see what happens. Ran a hard, competitive race. Didn't have a superb spot but stayed calm and moved up to the front pack over the first 800, we probably came through the K just over 3 minutes. Lots track of splits after that. Just relaxed and rolled with the pack through to the mile or so. At some point the guy in first slipped off the front and pulled away, he ended up building his lead and running about the time I had hoped to finish in. I had a pretty good battle with the next 3 guys, by 2k I was sitting 4th-ish and felt like I was hurting pretty bad, hung on for two more laps and then took the "lead" w/ 500 to go and maintained it to the finish.
I'll rate my feelings about this race as somewhat optimistic. It was definitely my best performance of the season thus far, and about 8 seconds faster than this race last year. I felt like I stayed focused and ran hard, maybe I could have covered the Keene St guys move and gotten under 9 but I don't know if that was in the cards today, not gonna beat myself up about it. Pace was fine for the first k, probably slacked from there to about 2400, I think my last few laps were ok. Coach pointed out that I'm only 50m from my PR, which does seem like nothing. I've been improving from week to week and I've been known to make decent sized performance jumps around this time of year, so feeling confident that I can throw down next week and make States. It's just a little frustrating that I was SURE I would come into the season running sub 9 out of the gate, still not sure exactly what happened :/ Let's keep rolling!
Caffeine