There was alot riding on last nites 800m at The Armory, a chance to put some distance{800m???} between my last race the sub par 4.57.1 mile at Hartshorne Masters Mile,and also post a seed time for the up coming Indoor Nationals since there wouldn't be another chance to run the 800m b4 the deadline for entries on Feb 21st,there is however another 800m here at The Armory on Feb28th so it wasn't a "last chance saloon" issue.......However given this was my first indoor 800m in almost THREE years one could be forgiven for being somewhat aprehensive.
It's always a bugbear having to work the day of an Armory race,evidently the entire planet...ney solar system seems hellbent on fuckin my day up and not being overly concerned about my need to catch a 2.30pm Megabus from Philly to Midtown Manhattan and I'm reasonably confident I burnt through a TON of energy just trying to get to The Armory by 6.30pm last nite......at least I had the good sense to schedule off Feb 27th/28th for my final pre Nationals races both here at The Armory over the mile on the 27th and 800m the following nite,those two races are a pivitol piece of the jigsaw re Boston and Indoor Nationals in five weeks time.
So yeah about this three year hiatus from indoor 800s,it's been my unfortunate experience over 800m at The Armory to suffer from runners who don't know how to run the 800m or a was the case on March 18th 2011 sitting around for five hours waiting to race{this is why when I take my curtain call on the Indoor Season on March 21st at the Front runners meet at The Armory I'll be running the 1,500m as it's the first race....get in and get out and go home!}
Drawn in heat #6 w/ a seed time of 2.15 I ws hoping to try and run faster,I wasn't sure how realistic or unrealistic 2.12 is right now.....one way to find out,toe the line and race!
Seeded 7th of 13 in a field where 2.12 had the #1 seed time I thought I had a shot at competitive race......I thought wrong!!
I'll own not getting a good reaction to the gun but not being jostled by the runners either side of me on the line which saw me in 13th coming off the line,and here's where I made my fatal flaw,instead of getting onto the outside of lane 1 or at least lane 2 I went straight to the rail......HUGE COCK UP ON MY PART!!!
I'll blame it on a lack of racing,outside of the 3 races I've ran in the past 6 weeks I'm still coming back from a 17 month period of inactivity on the track and while this was a rookie error on my part which I'll hold my hand up and own I will say IF it happens again this season I'll take myself out back and put a bullet between my eyeballs!!!
I didn't look up at the clock at 200m to check my split,I was too busy trying to reattach myself to the field which thankfully I had.....sadly on each of the final 3 laps I was forced to slow when runners infront of me began to slow down,while incredabily frustrating HAD I not gotten myself stuck on the rail this would not have been an issue so I feel it fair to portion the blame to everyone.
On three seperate occasions I was not only forced to slow down but then swing wide to reexcellerate,I was beginning to feel like Seb Coe in the Moscow 80 800m final.....maybe I should've been more like Steve Ovett and been a little "free" w/ my elbows and arms,and while I don't want that reputation it might not have been the worst thing last nite.
The final dagger in my heart was coming off the top turn w/ 250m to go the guys in lane 1 and 2 were practically holding hands as I swung wide into lane 3 to overtake them b4 cutting back into lane 1......WTF!!!!!
7th in 2.16.78 roughly 34 seconds per lap.....not the 2.12 33 seconds per lap I was looking for,for shits and giggles 2.16.78 would have only gotten me 7th at Indoor Nationals last year and while I at least have a legit seed time for Boston I've got to do better over the coming 5 weeks.
Also for a heat that had it's #1 seed time of 2.12 the top 5 ran:2.08,2.09,2.10,2.11,2.11 which begs the question why weren't they in the previous heat or faster??
I'm getting shit sick of these arseholes who lie about their seed times and or don't know how to run an 800m indoor race,next season I may bypass the 800m at Thursday Nite At The Races and just use my fastest time indoors this season if I need a seed time for Indoor Nationals
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