I'm in Harrisonburg and I went to the EMU track to run a 1600 time trial. I was pretty sure I could break 5 but there's always a bit of uncertainty when I haven't done it in a while. My workouts have been good but not great and I didn't feel particularly springy on the warm up. But I told myself that's to be expected when I know I'm going to be doing a hard effort. It wasn't as cool as I thought it would be but still no where near the humidity of a few weeks ago. When I got to the track there was another girl who looked like she was an EMU track athlete.
I was doing my warm up stretches when I heard thunder and there were some dark clouds in the distance. The wind was picking up just a little bit but the sun was still really bright.
Better get this over with soon.
I rushed the warm up since my legs didn't feel particularly good anyway and if started storming then I would have to bail on the whole thing. As I was putting on my spikes there was a particularly loud roll of thunder and I said to the girl who was doing drills on the track, "That doesn't sound good."
She said, "Yeah, I didn't think it was supposed to rain today" with a concerned look on her face. I took two strides that felt okay and then after a bit of walking I went straight into the hard 1600.
The night before I predicted I would run somewhere between 4:57 and 4:51 or so. Anything close or over 5 minutes would have been a sub-par day. During the warm-up I predicted my lap splits would probably be something like 73-75-75-73.
Off the line my legs felt pretty good. I'd been dragging my feet on the warm-up but I had good turnover and bounce once I started in earnest. My breathing was fine coming through the first lap and I was right on 73 pace. Everything was going to plan at that point so I eased up just a bit and let myself come through halfway in about 2:27 or 2:28. I was still feeling good so I decided to surge a little and I could feel that my legs were going to be able to respond. Coming up with 500 to go I told myself to push now and get ready to push even harder for the whole last lap. I came through with one lap to go in 3:41 which means I ran the the third lap in 73. That was a good sign that I was able to get faster on the hardest lap. With one lap to go I told myself to push the whole way but without someone to race or pace off of I don't feel like I really went to the well. I checked with 200 to go and I was at about 4:17 which means I could slow way down on the last 200 and still break 5. I drove reasonably hard down the final stretch, like an 8 or 9 in terms of effort and finished in 4:53.
I'm pretty happy with it in hindsight. I know it's a long ways off my absolute best but I wasn't far off what I thought I would run on a great day. It's a starting point to be checked off and I know I'll approach the next time trial with more confidence. Another thing I was reminding myself during the warm up was the importance of confidence. I really wasn't feeling very good but I knew (or hoped) if I could act like I was definitely going to break 5 then it would probably go much better.
Anyway, I was breathing pretty hard and walked for about half a lap before jogging a bit and then walking more. I did 2 laps of very slow walking and jogging and decided to do a fast 400 that I thought I would run in about 68 or 67. Previously when I had tried to run all out 400s I could only manage about 68. I felt really good in the first 200m of the 400 and surprised myself by splitting a 31 and feeling like I could still push. I tried to get a little faster and managed a 64.09. That's the fastest 400 I've run in months by several seconds. And only a few minutes after a near all-out mile attempt. It's getting back to the speed I had before the summer when I was doing a lot of really hard track efforts.
Then I did a 300, 200, and 100 all with walking rest and managed to split 200 in 31 seconds for each of them. So that's kind of where my hard effort speed is right now. The splits were 47, 31, and 15. The storm never really materialized and other than some light rain and a little bit of thunder it passed without incident.
Maybe that's kind of a weak metaphor for the whole experience. This time trial was an ominous test that if I failed would have been very discouraging going forward. But then, no, it actually went fine and it turns out I am in decent shape. Sometimes the storm just misses you. Or something like that.
Yay for a good run.
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