Nick and I went to Boston Saturday to run in the BU Mini meet. Nick is changing gears after a long X-C season, in which he won the NH State Championships, and competed in the USATF Junior Olympics, placing 175th in the National meet (getting caught up in a clog of fallen runners near the start).
I have not run a serious race since January's injury, and this was a true test, racing 3000m on the track. I prepared by staying up all night (OK, so I planned on NOT racing so deliberately scheduled myself to work) and we left at 6:30AM for the 9AM start time. They postponed the start until 10am, so we were very, um, early.
After plenty of warmup, I took off at the back of the section (I was the last seed anyway) and hung there for the first mile (5:22). I passed one person shortly after, and basically just tried to hang onto the pack (we were all seeded very close, within a 15 second window). This worked well for me, and in the last 400m I tried to pick it up, passing one more person and hitting what seemed like negative splits, but turned out to be pretty much another 5:22 pace split. The time counts as a PR since I have never raced it before, and under the circumstances I was very happy. I came back to run the mile with Nick, seeded at 5:10, and ran a 5:12.
Nick ran 2:35 for the first 800m, and I passed him there and tried to drag him along to a 5:10 or so finish, but he started breathing in the track dust and was unable to come back in the last 800m, instead hitting 5:20. This is technically his mile PR, but he ran that as a split in a 2.1 mile race, so obviously he can go faster. His goal is sub-5 by the state meet, and of course a victory there would be nice too.
I am planning on taking a little time to recover but racing again in 2 weeks, probably another 3000m, rather than trying to test the calf and hamstring too much with speed. Hopefully I can log a strong mile at one of the later races this season as well.
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Darin
