Spured On

It doesen,t take much to rev my engines,a war of words w/ some half wit{I could,ve said battle of wits but if you,d have been privvy to the verbal altercation I,m refering to you,d know there was little wit on display :)}and a thrilling come from behind victory for my beloved Spurs in a Uefa Cup tie at White Hart Lane and I was ready to tackle my first 4x1 mile repeat workout in over a month.
W/the prospect of a shot at the mile next Friday at the Villanova Jack Pyrah Invitational still pending plus the invite to the 41st Hartshorne Memorial Mile waiting for me upon my arrival home I was ready to face the challenge of my bread and butter repeats,4x1 mile,I was bitterly disappointed w/ my last set of mile repeats,a below par:5.27.79,5.18,75,5.23.01,5.17.35 on Oct 23rd,at the time I chalked it up to "just having an off nite"but I,ve come to the realization that following almost 6 months of at least one 4x1 mile repeat a week maybe just maybe my body was letting me know it was time to ease up and take some much needed down time.
Runners by our very nature are not smart,really we,re not,as a rule we don,t subscribe to the less is more train of thought,we hate to be told,don,t run,or you can,t run,and sometimes we need to have the glaringly obvious spelt out to us,it,s a minor character defect often unnoticed by non runners but feverently brushed over by those like myself who know it,s there but hate to acknowledge it,s exsistance!!!!!
Conditions were mild but brisk,what I won,t give to say that over the next four months!!and following my stretches and mile warm up it was time to have at it,1.20 per lap,5.20 per mile x 4
1.19 for the opening lap,I couldn,t have asked for a better start and while my pace dipped oh so slightly on the next 2 laps,1.23,1.22,I still went through 1.200m in 4.04,and thanks in no small part to a blistering turn of speed off the final bend I clocked a 69 sec closing lap for a 5.13.40,prehaps a tad too brisk for my opening mile but I was just happy to not only be out there but also running faster than my last 4x1 mile.
Things began well enough on repeat#2,another 1.19 opener but then a 1.25,1.26 set of 400s b4 a rousing finale of 1.14 to clock 5.24.57,obviously I wasn,t going to jump back in at the high level of mile repeats I was clocking in September in preparation for the 5th Ave Mile but that said it,s semi frustrating to record such slow splits
Repeat #3 is one that I hope to erase from my memory asap,it started slowly 1.23,saw little in the way of improvement in the middle, a pair of 1.25s,and culminated w/ a somewhat lackluster 1.19,I know I could and prehaps should,ve worked harded over the final 200m and the 5.32.89 is as painful to type as it was to record,let,s hope it serves as my one and only below par mile in the coming weeks and months.
Final mile,a decent opener 1.17,followed by a semi decent second lap of 1.22,clearly some work needs to be done over the coming weeks to erase these unwelcome 1.24 and above laps,at the bell I clocked 4.03 on route to a closing lap of 1.13 and final mile of 5.16.77.
I didn,t expect to get it all back on one night,granted I may need to rethink next Friday at Haverford and to that end I may join my team mates for a pryamid workout on Sunday{2 sets of 200m,300,400,600,300,200m to sharpen my speed}and 6x600m on Mon as oppossed to Tue if I,m to get another set of 4x1miles in on Wed b4 the Jack Pyrah Invitational mile next Fri,so much to think about in the next day or two.