Going For The One{Thousand,Five Hundred}

So for the final time this winter a short trek up to Manhattan to The Armory for an Indoor meet......I swear in a previous life I was a Native New Yorker......or maybe in a future life I'm coming back as one.........
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.

Don't Let The Door Hit You In The Arse On The Way Out

Oh the unbridaled joy that I felt at 12.57pm yesterday........Spring officially arrived, to say it's been a "Long Cold Winter" is selling the drama short,prehaps my first indication of what a foul Winter we had had in store was the 3'' of snow that fell on Dec 8th the day  I flew home from London that not only disrupted my flight but also cost me the first week of training upon my return......a trait that would then play itself out repeatedly throughout the Winter.

Still it's done now and while we could still be in for some cold weather{the weather peeps are predicting snow for Tuesday and Wednesday......#ohbollocks} the bad days will be be the minority.....he typed hopefully as we exit March and enter April.
An easy 4 miler on tap which is a bit of a cock teaser to be honest,no sooner do I feel like I'm hitting my stride as it's time to turn around at the foot of the Schuylkill Banks footbridge and head back home but it's better than doing loops around Clark Park for 40 mins.
At least w/ 40 mins I had time to think out my race stratagy for tonites 1,500m,having had a less than steller seasons debut over the mile in January at Hartshore and then had an absolute "brain fart" of a race at The Armory at the end of Febuary I need to run smarter over 1,500m to sign off on the Indoor season w/ a modicum of satisfaction,w/ out "showing my hand" pre race what I will say is providing I take a leaf out of my playbook from the 2011 Outdoor Nationals 5,000m where I won a bronze I could be on for a semi decent race/ time and maybe snag a medal even........clock's ticking only 11.5 hours to go till race time.....

The Wetter The Better.......

Having burnt my rest day on Monday due to the snow you can imagine my horror when I discovered there was a 45% chance of rain between 4pm and 6pm

Clean Bill Of Health

Easy 6 miler to kick the week off,shades of dajavu as last Tuesday was a 6 miler also...however on that day it was an unseasonably high 63 degrees,had to settle for 46 degress this Tuesday,not that I'm complaining considering Monday had been 32 degrees and snowing......
Remember last week I was complaining about feeling slugish and fatigued? well I guess it wasn't anything abmormal as on Friday I had blood work done at my doctors office and as of today they haven't gotten back to me to say "don't plan any vactions too far in the future or start ant long books" so I guess I'm ok and maybe it was all in my head......which lets face it is a dangerous place to begin w/!!!!

I can't imagine my new regime of vitamins has made such an instant difference,prior to Saturday I was taking Calcium once a day but upon the recomendation of a fellow M50 masters runner I've now added Vitamins B,C,D,E, Fish Oil and Magnesium and while I believe over the course of time they'll help I can't imagine that only 4 days into them they alone have made ALL the difference,I'd like to think that getting out on a regular basis day in day out is helping also,for what it's worth Tuesdays 6 miler was a 67 min time......identical to last Tuesdays time so while I haven't gotten any faster I'm not getting slower which wasn't the case a few weeks ago over 8 milers.......

Tell Me The Legends Of Long Ago

So much for Mondays 6x600m repeats as we got snow.....again!!!! and so much for Monday being Green for St Paddys Day!!
Loathe as I am to miss a Monday run as I feel it always puts me behind the 8 ball for the week and the potential of an 5 day/40mpw there is also the wrinkle this week of it being a race week w/ Fridays 1,500m at The Armory at the Frontrunners meet as I call time on the 2014 Indoor Season.

Having just gotten a full week under my belt the last thing I needed was losing a day to the snow but I can't control the weather so now I'm looking at back to back 6 milers on Tuesday/Wednesday w/ an easy 4 miler on Thursday followed by Fridays race,an 8 mile recovery run Saturday and finishing the week off w/ another Sunday 12 miler......the observant amongst you will see that actual comes out to a 6 day/40mpw but the only way around that was to make the Tues/Wed 6 milers 8 miles and w/ a race on tap for Friday I opted for lower milage even if it meant throwing in the easy 4 miler on Thursday......all that could've been avoided however w/ 6x600m repeats on Monday but "Old Man Winter" opted to stick his fuckin' oar in again.....dare we hope one last  time this winter.

Spent my down time Monday listening to some Thin Lizzy and Rory Gallagher to celebrate my heritage,trust me and Bono would back me up on this one,there'd be no  U2 w/out Thin Lizzy and Rory Gallagher.......
Slainte

No Fanfare For This Common Man

Hallefrickinujah!! for only the second time this winter and not since weekending Feb 2nd did yours truly manage a 5day/40mpw.
While I'll stop short of breaking my hand patting myself on the back I will say this moving forward this week  needs to be the rule and not the exception if I have any notions of having a competitive outdoor season,hopefully w/ this one under my belt and the advent of Spring{and dear God Springlike weather!!!} I can make this not so much a habit but have it become routine.

Up and out the door by 10.05am conditions were sunny but mild{code for ski hat and gloves!!!} when I left for only my second 12 miler of the year,however I aim to make the Sunday 12 miler my "long run" going forward,frankly running a number of 8 milers during the week{usually twice} and then "going long" over 10 miles on Sunday seems like a cop out so from here on in the plan is to make Sunday a 12 miler.
There was a little bit of activity along the Schuylkill Banks and Kelly Dr although w/ a regatta on the Schuylkill river that meant extra pedestrian traffic along Kelly Dr between Columbia Bridge and St Joes boathouse but nothing that caused me to slow down.....far from it,on my previous 12 miler on Feb 2nd I shot for 2.05 and clocked 2.07 so imagine my delight at clocking 2 flat on Sunday.
Granted I wanted to be home for the 12 noon Spurs arsenal kickoff.....#whybother but the fact that in this past week I've managed to lower both my 8 mile times and now my 12 miler as well as take 15 seconds off my previous 4x1mile repeats hopefully means it's starting to gell......but b4 we get carried away on a wave of premature euphoria lets see what next week brings........

Been A Long Time Comin'.....

FINALLY!!!! six weeks after I last set foot on a track{other than my 3 races at The Armory in Feb} I was back for repeats.
Having established in my previous entry that didn't actually go to college I guess I can't use the line" If Irony was on the curicular I'd have been a Major in it" but on the very day I showed up for mile repeats on the track the M50 Indoor Mile was being contested in Boston........w/ several more of these bad boys under my belt I may've been there to throw my hat into the ring......there's always Outdoor Nationals which is 18 weeks away......

By the time I arrived at Temple around 2pm it was warm enough for shorts and tshirt following my mile warm up.given I hadn't managed repeats period in 6 weeks and 4x1mile repeats since Nov 2nd{19 weeks} I went into these 4x1mile repeats w/ zero agenda,just do them,hope for the best and let the chips fall where they may......

#1 600m
1.20-1.24-1.28-1.26=5.38.6
A reasonable start,the question was how well could I continue/maintain this pace?

#2 600m
1.24-1.29-1.29-1.26=5.48.4
Prehaps predictably slowing down but  my mindset was as long as I kept the 1.30s out of the equation the sub 6.00s would remain intact.....

#3 600m
1.29-1.33-1.33-1.27=6.02.6
Not  a great surprise if I'm being honest but something to work on over the coming weeks and months.

#4 600m
1.28-1.33-1.30-1.24=5.55.3
At least I was able to finish strong and didn't just "mail it in"

Overall not a bad start,granted there's room for improvement but for the record this was a 15 second improvement on yprevious 4x1mile repeats on Nov 2nd.....lets hope it's NOT another 19 weeks b4 the next set of mile repeats.....