Walk The Line

Indoor records are seemingly getting knocked off everywhere you turn. The American, Collegiate and High school 5k records, the American 2 mile, the collegiate mile, collegiate 1000m…I can’t even keep track of them all as they appear to be falling left and right. The last two weekends of racing have been crazy. Centrowitz made a 3:53 mile look easier than a 3:53 1500m and 8 guys went under 3:58 in the same race. It wasn’t long ago that it seemed like only 8 guys did it during the entire indoor season.

What the hell is going on?? 

Oh yeah, it’s an Olympic year; where people come out of the woodwork rolling. Every 4 years it happens. The depth seems to be greater and the times seem to be faster. People find it within themselves to give it one last shot, work that much harder and really get after it as they cling to hopes of a chance at making the Olympic trials; and for the lucky few, a trip to London to represent their country at the pinnacle of our sport; The Olympic Games.

I’m not going to lie. The last couple of weeks it has been painstakingly difficult to sit around and watch these times be thrown down by fellow competitors with no race of my own in the foreseeable future. It’s definitely made me anxious to race. Very anxious. I won’t be running my first race until mid-late March. But, there is method to the madness. Instead of sacrificing valuable training for a few races indoors, we’ve been getting in some solid blocks of training to better prepare for the season that actually matters.

It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement, which I myself have been guilty of in the past, but you have to stay focused on what’s important. Often times, staying smart and consistent with what you’re doing will take you farther than trying to push even harder and do all this extra work. That’s how you end up injured; and you can’t do anything from the sidelines. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be working hard. But, there’s a fine line between working really hard and working too much. You need to find that line, and walk it carefully.

Training has been going really well down here and track work is starting to feel good again! We had 2x 600, 500, 400 towards the end of last week and I ran 1:30, 73. 58 – 1:27, 72, 56. It felt nice and controlled, so things are continuing to move in a positive direction. 

Other than that, things haven’t been too crazy around here…I went to a Coyotes game last week, a dueling piano bar, hiking in Sedona and Go-Kart racing. Gotta love recovery weeks.

-  Linc