There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

Much like the old Monty Python sketch "Secret Service" where the punch line goes"still I was getting used to it by then" that's pretty much how I feel about my latest race not going to plan.
First of all mad props to my friend,team mate and fellow celtic running brother Sean for driving up to Icahn,the forecast called for rain and it's along way to go to run in the rain but Sean never waivered from his original compartment to driving up and was rewarded w/ 4.50 1,500m which has lead Sean to reconsider his original decision that this would be his only Tuesday Nite Speed Series meet.....must be that mondo track??!!

It's rare that 2 miles gets offered as a race distance,3,000m is more often the bill o fare,in fact this would be my first ever outdoor 2 milers and I only had 1 indoor 2 miler to my credit,a 10.05.6. last March at The Armory.
Last years opening Tuesday Nite Speed Series meet drew a low attendance and tonite was no different,it could be said the threat of rain probably kept several would be track faithful away,I would guess the two June meets will attract bigger numbers.

The 2 mile became a combined race as only 5 women signed up to run,so a 14 men/women line up toed the starting line.
From the gun I moved into 3rd behind 2 CPTC runners,the leader was my friend Atilla who I knew could go sub 10 and were I running where I think I should be running right now I might've been able to go w/ him,instead I came through 400m in 1.15,I'd need to keep that pace for the next 7 laps just to run 10 flat....and that wasn't happening.
I got relegated to 4th b4 the back straight and ultimately found myself in no mans land for the rest of the race.

Each 400m split saw me fall off of 1.15 pace,2.38 at 800m,I forget now what I came through the mile in but it was now a matter of seeing it through to the finish,4th in 10.34.0.
Another race that saw me 29 seconds slower than where I was aiming for and the questions and doubts started to flood my mind.
How?how is it I'm so much slower than where I was a year ago?have I over trained?

Post race several members of the FOR Fraternal Order Of Runners offered advice that ranged from not enough tempo runs to just being patient that my body will respond to the hard training in time for Worlds and Nationals,I hope they're right.
I have decided that my final 3 races will now be over a mile,1,500m and 800m as I need to begin to sow the seeds for Nationals,at this point in time I'm holding out very little hope of doing anything worthwhile at Nationals in 7 weeks time,confidence begets confidence but on the back of 4 bad races on the spin my confidence is as low as whale shit....which lays at the bottom of the ocean!

One bright spot on the evening,given the meet had gone off a a fast clip,I hadn't cooled down post 2 miler and Sean's 1,500m was going to the line so I figured I'd wait for him to get done and we'd cool down together....the final event of the night was a 4x800m relay,something I'd given no thought to until I was asked if I'd jump to make up a foursome,it wasn't something I planned on but I'm glad I did as I ran an opening 400m in 63 seconds which off of a 2 mile race less than a hour earlier w/ no cool down or warm up for was reasonable and something to give me the belief that over the shorter races coming up I might be able to post time in the region of 4.30,4.10,2.03 far more respectable than the 16.25.9-10.34.0 I've ran 5,000m and 2 miles in.