Race report: PVTC Track Mile, June 30, 2013

I ran the mile today at the PVTC meet, finishing in 5:39.  Yup, another mile. 

This one was frankly disappointing.  Got there, warmed up like my usual, and then waited for the mile to start.  Just like every other time, there was the bit of debate about which heat to jump in.  They announced the final split as 5:25, and based on that, I decided to go with the second heat, which had the added benefit of several teammates (all three named Jessica, amusingly) that would start the race around the same pace as myself.

So the gun went off, and I tucked into the pack of Jessicas and hung out there for a while (as I recall, around 2 laps).  Then it seemed like the pack was starting to fade a bit, and so I swung wide and started what felt like a steady push towards the finish.  Except in retrospect, looking at the splits from my Garmin, it looks like I just hit steady 84s and 85s for the whole race.  Like a workout.

I had every opportunity to pick it up.  I had people to chase, and one of the Jessicas went with me and then accelerated hard in the last lap.  I had all the will in the world to go with her, and pumped my arms and lifted my knees, but I just didn't have that extra gear. 

Again, frustrating.  I raced like this once before, in my first mile this summer, but I just attributed to not having raced many miles and slacking on drills.  I've been pretty good about doing my drills, adding box jumps, etc, but still couldn't find that gear.

Annoying.  Maybe that's just the mile, and why people have such a love/hate relationship with it.  Who knows.  But bad races are frustrating, even when you remind yourself that you're NOT trying to run fast right now, but just to work on different things in your racing.  The goal is to race well in the late fall - October and beyond.  But it'd be nice to be a bit more consistent right now.  Especially since I've been trying to work on explosiveness and power.


At least I didn't go out too fast again, so corrected that.  And now I'm a bit angry, and that does good things for my running generally.  So we'll see what the next race brings.