Bad Night At The Office

Since my Armory debut in 06 I've prided myself on always being able to run well here,the notable exception being in 08 coming back from my stress fracture when my speed,strenght and conditioning were all in short supply as was reflected by my 4.47.01 mile,off the back of a disappointing 10.18. 3,000m on Sunday I was hell bent on rebooting my 10 indoor season and where better than here at The Armory? a venue I've had some of my greatest performances in the last four years.

In short things just didn't go to plan,my confidence wasn't where I'd like it to be so I baulked at seeding myself in heat 1 which proved to be prudent,but I lacked the self belief to jump into heat 2 which I should've been more than capable of running,Bob Mc won it in 4.36.a time that should be w/in my capability at this time of the season.
So heat three it was seeding myself at 4.40 that alone should set the scene,I should be looking at 4.30s but I lack the confidence right now and boy was I about to be proven right in the worst possible way.

Seeded 6th in a 12 man heat I didn't get a great start but moved into 4th....however somewhat tellingly I allowed myself to get on the inside rail and that just underlines everything that's not right w/ my running at the moment,my favoured position is the outside of lane 1 or even lane 2,confidence begets confidence but clearly w/ such a rookie error I can see what my problem is which thankfully is half the battle.
35 secs at 200m,the pace I would've chosen however the words shit and fan were about to come into play.
Having worked my way to the outside of lane 1 I got bumped by the runner behind me,no big we were tightly bunched and these things happen.....but then it happened again b4 the turn and what I should've done was speed up to get out of that situation and an in form me would have,however my lack of confidence meant I chose to play the dick card,I slowed to box the guy in and he then proceeded to push me half way around the turn.

Right there my timing which isn't where I would like it to be got thrown off and even though I regrouped to come through 400m in 69 seconds in 4th or 5th I was floundering.
After that I forget my splits or at which point of the race almost the entire field went by me I recall 2.21 at 800m a 4.42 mile which is hardly earth shattering by my standards and almost indicative of the space I somehow seem to have ended up in, I could not muster the will much less the speed and more damningly the desire to work my way back into the race.
10th in 4.50.1. that simply is NOT acceptable.

What followed was an underlining moment in everything that's not right w/ my running right now, as I dejectedly made my way back to the bleachers a runner doing his cool down laps brushed up against me.....innocent enough it should be said....but no I had to view this as a personal attack and proceeded to mouth off a verbal challenge to the "villain of the peace"
I could and should have left it there but I didn't, w/ an almost snipers like stare I followed him around and waited for him to pass me again,making damn sure there was contact again between us, again I mouthed off to whit the runner made a "whatever" gesture w/ his hands.
I'm NOT proud of this next part but I've always tried to be honest in my blog even when it's not gone according to script and I proceeded to chase after him to confront him......frankly if I'd shown that much passion and fire out on the track during my race I'd have done a hell of a lot better.

Thankfully calmer heads prevailed,as the dust settled "runner x" and I settled our differences he apologized for any wrong doing on his part and I fessed up that I was taking my anger out on him for what had happened out on the track,we shook hand and that was that,a bloody stupid incident and one I don't need to analyze,had my race gone better the first bump between us would have been treated as a "no biggie" instead of a "why don't you look where the !@#* you're going"
Did I need to blog all that?some would say no it's a smoke screen for the real issue that I'm not running like I know I can right now,my response to that is,Andre Aggasi didn't need to fess up in his biography to doing crystal meth but he did when it would've have been easier to keep stoom on the matter,like I said I admit to my short comings and don't try to blind the masses w/ my imaginary halo,when I'm wrong or plain bang out of order I'll cop to it,after all as a former alter boy and an Irish catholic"confession is good for the soul"

I don't need to soul search where my problems lie right now,I know what needs doing,since my injury I've backed off of running everyday which I fear may've made me a little soft in the middle,maybe I do need to get back to running 6 days a week even if it's only low mileage,yes I know the weather has made it hard to run but this goes hand in hand w/ the "soft in the middle" belief,yeah it's been below freezing alot in the past few weeks but there were times in my very recent past where I'd bundle up and deal w/ it....these were the times of 4.30 indoor miles at The Armory which was only a year ago,I need to get back there and fast, right now there's a light covering of snow on the ground,do I continue to be soft and say"it's not ideal conditions to run" or do I suck it up and say "talk is cheap I know what needs to be done and I know how to do it"?