Getting On The Podium

"There's saints and sinners life's a gamble and you might lose,there's cowards and heroes both have been known to break the rules
There's lovers and haters,the strong and the weak will have their day,we're devils and angels which one will I be today?

Winners And Losers-Social Distortion

During the course of my season I have been known to utter the following quote at least once,maybe twice"the difference between standing on the podium at Nationals and standing next to it is the difference between training or not training on the days you don't feel like it"
The fly in the ointment this season wasn't so much not wanting to train but being able to train at my best given my current condition.
Having committed to the 5,000m at Worlds in April b4 the deadline but knowing I was on a hiding to nothing in Sacramento I went out there w/ a "just run and have fun w/ it"mindset,my reward was to finish 14th in a seasons slowest time of 16.54.1,it was the best I could hope for given the circumstances but now three weeks later at Nationals I was hoping for better.

I knew in order to get on the podium for a bronze which again was the best I felt I could hope for would require a different type of race than the one I'm used to,more often than not and certainly in all 4 5,000m races this season I've adopted a gunslinger approach to the race,go out hard in sub 5 minute mile pace for the opening mile and hope to hold on,what this has resulted in is four races were I've ran slower than the last,16.21.8. at Penn,16.25.9. at Swarthmore,16.48.9. in New York and 16.54.1. at Sacramento,in order to reach the podium I would need to be the hunter,not the hunted.

After getting soaked to the skin in a pre race downpour conditions were grey and overcast come the 9.35am gun time,due to a lower than usual turnout for Masters Nationals the M45-49 and M50-54 age groups were combined,no biggie it just meant making sure I knew who the main contenders in the M50-54 were as they would no doubt be ahead of me in the overall race.
As for the M45-49 race pre race I expected Francis Burrdett,Mark Zamek,Damon Blackford and Jeff Mann to be my main rivals for that top three finish,the race scenario I had thought up was Francis and M50-54 runner Brian Pilcher would take up the running and I'd be in the pack working off of the other 4 M45-49 runners I'd sized up as my threat to that bronze......the gun went off,Francis hit the front.....followed closely by Mark Zamek w/ Brian Pilcher a little further back w/ an unidentified runner w/ him b4 a gap to Damon Blackford and then a string of runners including Jeff Mann and then myself......and the moral to this kids is in running as is in life always have a plan b lined up!!

Mark Zamek had finished 9th at Worlds a full 25 seconds ahead of me so any hopes of going w/ him to try and get silver had gone up in smoke,fortunately in the clerking tent pre race I'd identified Damon Blackford by face,by name I knew him as a 16.35 seed time but that'd do me no good out on the track if I didn't have a face to put to the name,as it was Damon was giving chase to the lead four,Francis,Mark,Brian and the as of yet unidentified 4th place runner the race was well and truly on.
I was some what miffed that there was no official timekeeper at the 200m mark giving out overall time,granted there was a clock at the finish but in a 5,000m race it's always nice to get that opening 400m split and subsequent mile splits,thankfully for me at least my teammates Chuck and Ray were calling out my splits 81 seconds for the opening lap on route to a 5.22 opening mile.

The glory days of 75 second laps and sub 5 min opening miles will I'm sure return as my iron levels return to where they should be but this was a race I knew I needed to run smart,at Worlds there was no pressure so I just went out and ran an opening lap of 74 seconds and a 4.59 mile,the problem being my head and body aren't on the same wavelength,my brain thinks I can hold that pace,my body knows different so in order to maintain my proud record of a podium finish in each race at Masters Nationals since Orono Maine in 07{7 races and counting not including the 4x800m relay}I had to go out conservatively,this would be a race of two halves,the first six laps and the second six laps.......

Making my way up through the field I'd put myself in 7th overall w/ 5 laps to go and coming out of the top turn I passed Jeff Mann on the inside,Kudos to Jeff he heard me coming and moved out to lane 2 to allow me to overtake 6th overall and as best as I knew 4th in the M45-49 age group,the mystery runner in 4th overall behind Brian Pilcher was still unknown to me,but at least Damon Blackford was beginning to come back to me.
I forget where I passed Damon I think w/ 3 laps to go,having reeled him in I was tempted to sit behind him but thought it better to go w/ the momentum I was building,back to back 5.22 miles had put me at 10.44 at the 2 mile mark and remarkably I ran a third 5.22 mile to clock 16.06 at 3 miles,how often do I run even splits like this???
Thanks to race announcer Pete Taylor the mystery runner in 4th place overall had been revealed,Adam Weiner....M50-54,meaning my 5th overall was actually 3rd in the M45-49 age group and as long as I stayed on my feet the bronze was mine.

By now Mark Zamek was paying for going w/ Francis and had began to drift back to the chasing Brian Pilcher and Adam Weiner had there had been more laps to go I might've been able to mount a serious challenge for silver but I'd said prior to Masters Nationals that a bronze was probably the best I could hope for today and I'd be more than happy to take that which is how it ended up,5th overall 3rd in the M45-49 age group w/ a time of 16.45.0. 15 seconds clear of Damon Blackford and only 8 seconds behind silver and Mark Zamek.
I'd also reversed an annoying trend this season of seeing each race get slower,9 seconds faster than Worlds thanks to running a much smarter race.

So back to back bronzes at 5,000m it's hard to compare each race as they are so completely different,in both cases the best I though I could hope for was a bronze so in both instances I got what I expected but in a year I thought I'd be hard pressed to have 10 races to fill out a top ten list come December 31st this one will be in there.