It's a small price to pay for the opportunity to run on one of the best indoor tracks in the country and I must confess the bus/train rides up and back allow for a lot of music to be listened to which is never a bad thing,the "bill o fare" this trip Aerosmith,Status Quo,Pantera and Alice Cooper.......trust me if Pantera don't get the competitive juices flowing to race then you should retire on the spot and take up Mall Walking!!!
I was caught between two trains of thought re what distance to race over, having had a modicum of success over the 800m in my last race dropping from 2.16.78 to 2.14.11 there was a temptation to see if I could continue to lower that......or see where I was at over 1,500m and also have a "bench mark" time heading into the outdoor season.......
Scheduling kind of won out the 1,500m was up first while the 800m was second to last.....on my previous Frontrunners meet in 2011 I opted for the 800m and sat around for 5 hours b4 I raced....the 1,500m it was then!!!!.....not that this didn't present logistical isues,as it was I had to cut my warm up short by a lap and didn't have time to stretch out my achilles pre race but frankly going into my 38th year of racing if I'm not prepared for these issue now.....when???
Having seeded myself at 4.30 I earnt the "honour" of being the old man of the field at 50 other than John Milone at 41 the field ran 19 through 39,better to seed myself honestly and make a fair fist of it than use a slower seed time and "dog" the second heat.
14 of us on the starting line,10 across the line and 4 of us me included on the next line up the turn,in an indoor 1,500m that suited me once we broke at the bottom of the home straight I'd be on the outside of lane 1 and would potentially allow me a clear run.
The game plan going in was to try and keep even 36 second pace for a 4.12 at 1,400m and then 18 seconds for the closing 100m for a 4.30 so I wasn't going to get caught up inwhat was going on ahead of me,just run my own race and hopefully run a decent time.
I heard 36 seconds at 200m and 1.11 at 400m and frankly after that the splits became a blur more importantly I had runners ahead of me and behind me so I felt I was in a race and not "no mans land" as the laps quickly went by,b4 i knew it I heard 4.15 at 1,400m I was just off pace and dug deep to cover the final 100m in 17 seconds for a 4.32.58 time 13th in a field of 14.
To put things in prespective heat 2 was won in 4.48.35 in a field that went from 17 through 75 so heat 1 was where I needed to be,does it suck finishing second last? hell yeah but in running as in life sometimes you need to check your ego at the door and at least I now have a legit 1,500m time moving forward this Spring into the Summer.
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