Run This Town

Another race, another W.

It was a pretty low key week leading up to the race yesterday with only a tune up workout on Wednesday which consisted of a 500m and some 200's. Other than that, training was fairly light and it was probably my lowest volume week since October or November. I mostly sat around watching NCAA basketball non-stop. I probably saw a little bit of every game that got played in the first couple of rounds. Thank you Internet streaming and split screen technology!

Saturday was race day. Unfortunately, it was also Elite 8 day in PHX. I've always wanted to attend the March Madness tournament (one of the best in all of sport!) and when I was lucky enough to get a hold of some tickets for the game courtesy a former teammate at Penn State, I couldn't resist. Ellerton and I packed our bags for the meet and headed to the US Airways center to take in the action. It was a great game and an incredible come back by Louisville. Rick Pitino is awesome to watch on their sideline...We headed straight from the game to the track and arrived with a few minutes to spare before warming up. I don't think Wynn would have been too pleased if we missed the race for a basketball game. It wasn't exactly ideal race prep, but being 10 rows from the court definitely made it worthwhile!

As for the race, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The time was a little slower than I had hoped, but you can't complain too much about a win. It's just nice to have some confidence back and be in the hunt to win races again. I don't care what anyone says, losing sucks. That's what made last year so frustrating. I know I'm not going to win every race I run this year, so I'll enjoy my modest winning streak while it lasts. We went out a little slower than we had hoped for and that cost us a second or so in the overall result. My splits were 27.8, 56.6(28.8), 1:25.2(28.5), 1:52.8(27.6), 2:21.0(28.2). Official time of 2:21.08 for a PB. Good to see that my last 400m was my fastest. When Ellerton pulled out a little before the 800m mark I definitely eased up a bit with no one to go after. I think had we been a second faster from about 300-500m and if I had someone to chase I would have dipped under 2:20 which is what I was hoping for. It was a solid effort though. I've included the race footage below... (Thanks to Lisa and Nate for the colour commentary)

We also ran a 4x400m at the end of the night. Kyle to Darren to Ellerton to Me. I think the last time I anchored a 4x4 was back in the good old high school days. I didn't exactly light the world on fire with my speed, but I went out easily in 23.3 without having done any speed work yet;  so at least that's a good sign. We ran 3:15.61 all alone for an easy victory.

   - Linc