Flashes of Panic

Last year, when I did a little research on my history at 3000m, I discovered that my slowest collegiate time came when I did a 1,500m and an 800m earlier in the meet, and my second slowest when I’d done a mile/3000m double. I should’ve learned something.

Last night I did a mile/3,000m double at the Sugarloaf Mt. AC meet at Smith, and while the mile was OK (5:18, just three seconds off my banked-track time at BU last month,) the 3000 was horrible, a 10:49.

I ran a smart race in the mile, confirming that the first person to lead the race is almost always not the right one (too slow, as it happened) and once we dug in, I made relatively smart strategic and pacing choices. The only difference from last month was that neither I nor the track were as fast last night.

I felt pretty good about the 3000 about half an hour before it started. But everything went bad from there; I seriously mis-timed my warmup, then arrived at the line eight hours past my last meal (little fuel) and with raw feet from the previous spiked race. Entering the last thousand, I realized one foot was blistered and the other was… asleep. My rival from the mile, who stuck a second behind me from when I passed him just before halfway until the finish in that race, beat me by a straightaway in the second race.

Now I’m thinking about which race to do next week, if any. Doubling again is Right Out, but there’s a show at the Iron Horse I’d like to catch, and I could do it if I only ran the mile.

Technorati Tags: mile, races, running, spikes, track and field