Thursday marked the first time that I would be re-testing at Endurance this year. I had missed the initial time trial of the mile, but I was present for both the 800 meters and the 400 meters. This week we would be attempting the 800 meters again, with the 400 meters on deck for us next week. Both of those distances are tricky for me, basically for the same reason. They both require a lot of speed, but there is a bit of pacing involved since you can't just go all out the whole way. When I wrote about the mile last week, I could lay out lap by lap how I expected the race to go. With these two races, it comes down more to when you want to flip the switch and go for it. Last time around, I let someone else decide that for me. This time I tried something a little different.
It was another packed house for this week's time trial as there were 17 of us who had showed up to run two laps as fast as we could. Almost immediately, I got some grief from John McHugh over something I would have never expected him to care about: my fashion sense. Let me be clear: I don't spend a whole lot of time deciding what I am going to wear for my workouts. In the past, I cared so little that I often didn't even match. Nowadays, I put in the extra effort to try and match. For the most part though, I grab a shirt or a pair of shorts that is in my line of sight after I get out of the shower and then I pick something to match it. There must be a lot of red shirts visible to me on Thursdays because John was busting on me about always wearing red to Endurance. Rest assured I'll have a different color on for the 400 meter time trial.
We weren't going to spend a lot of time with the warmup as Coach Tim had to leave early and he wanted to get us through the 800 meters before he took off. After a couple of laps jogging and some stretching, Tim got all of us lined up. The line up for these races always ends up being the same. I'm on the outside or in the second wave of runners. The fastest runners line up toward the inside on the front line. And Flounder is always in lane 1. Here, see for yourself:
(Note: I may have to mention Flounder a bunch of times in this blog post just so that he can keep his total number of mentions on this blog on the rise. He informed me at this workout that he had gotten 55 mentions so far.)
As you can see, I was behind and towards the outer part of the track, but that wasn't a big deal to me early on. When we did this time trial in April, I went out with King and stuck with him for as long as I could. I wanted to feel out my own pace this time. In fact, my plan was to stay within shouting distance of the leaders after one lap, then really push the second lap in hopes that I could reel one of them in at the end. I didn't need to be alongside of them or even right behind them on lap one. As we headed out for the first 200 meters, I discovered that wasn't an option even if I wanted it to be. I thought that Alex, Matt, and John would be the three runners on the lead, but I didn't expect John to be pushing the pace as much as he was. Last week, there was a large pack together at the end of the first lap. Not the case this week. That triumvirate had opened up a gap after only half of a lap. Joy was next, with a gap between her and the next pack. Luke and Joe M led the pack that I was part of. I didn't know where Ashley M, Alona, and Flounder were, but I suspected they were not far behind me.
As we headed down the back straightaway, I felt good with my stride and moved past Joe and Luke. My eyes were focused on Joy yet again, although she was much further ahead of me than she had been during the mile. For some reason, I wasn't concerned yet. I had kept my breathing under control and didn't feel like I had to push tremendously hard to be in the position I was in at the end of one lap. Tim yelled out our times as we crossed the finish line and I was surprised to hear that I completed the first lap in 1:28, one second faster than I had in April.
I began to push at that point, hoping to draw closer to Joy as we got to the turn again. There was one problem: Joy had used a similar strategy. She was picking up her pace more than I was, slowly closing in on the lead group and causing the gap between us to grow. That was a little deflating. I thought I was doing well with my pacing and could make a race out of it, but the race was over. With 200 meters left, I was on my own. The top four were too far away to chase after. The stranger part was that I couldn't hear anyone behind me. I half-expected to hear someone closing in on me as my kick wasn't as strong as I thought it was, but there were no footsteps within earshot, nor any rapid breathing indicating that someone was going to come charging by. As I hit the final turn, I pumped my arms in an attempt to sprint home, but that surge at the end is tougher when you're by yourself. Had there been someone near me, I might have broken 3 minutes. As it was, I had to be happy with a 3 second improvement from April. Final time: 3:01.
I finished 11 seconds behind Joy, who had finished only 5 seconds behind John. Alex and Matt were 2 seconds ahead of him. Luke had actually put in a very strong sprint at the end and was only 5 seconds behind me, but I didn't notice how close he had gotten until right after I crossed the finish line. Flounder crossed the line in lane 1, 16 seconds after I had.
Tim took off, which meant Coach Miles (under the supervision of his mom, Laura) would be watching us for the second half of the workout. We had done something called Endless Relays back in April after the 400 meter time trial. It was rainy and we only had 8 people (you need 5 per team to make it work properly), so it didn't go so well that day. Today we had sunny skies and 17 people, so this was going to go much more smoothly. How does Endless Relays work? One team member sprints 100 meters, then passes off a baton to their awaiting teammate. You need 5 people per team because someone needs to be at the starting line at the end of the lap and the first runner will no longer be there. With 17 people, we did three teams. Since two teams had 6 people, there would be one station where twins would be running. I ended up being a twin along with Joe. The other set of twins was Luke and Joy.
There was symmetry in this workout as all of us would be running another 800 meters, only this time it would be in the format of eight 100 meter sprints. Joe and I were in lane 1, Flounder was in lane 2, and Luke and Joy were in lane 3. We made up the third leg of our respective teams. The speedsters were in the leg behind us as Matt was on my team, Alex was on Flounder's team, and John was on Luke and Joy's team. Alex came storming down the straightaway towards us and handed off to Flounder first as Matt hustled to get me the baton. When I got the baton, I turned and saw Flounder up ahead of me by about 20-30 meters. I didn't think I could catch him, but as I began my sprint, I realized that there was a slight chance I could. And as I motored around the turn, I became determined to catch him. About 10-20 meters before getting to our teammates, I went by him. I probably emptied the tank way too early, but I felt really good about how fast I went on that initial sprint. Even my twin mentioned that he wasn't expecting me to go that fast. (Note: In retrospect, it was a good thing that I went all out on this sprint, because Flounder's head start kept getting larger and larger over the next 7 legs. Of course, Flounder let me know that he saw the scoreboard as 7-1 in his favor when this workout ended.)
Of the 8 sprints, I kept up my speed for the first 6 legs. Joe was really good about urging me along any time I started to slow down during the sprints. At the end of the first lap, I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through 4 more sprints. Then on the 5th sprint, Luke emptied the tank, closing on my outside as we sprinted around the turn. He even had the "Dave breathing" going, where you could hear him from a mile away. On the next sprint, Joy got the baton and I gave it everything I had to beat her for once. Joy and Luke started sprint #7 ahead of us and I couldn't catch them. Finally, we got our batons at about the same time on sprint #8, but I couldn't stay with Luke, Joy, or my twin Joe. It was a fun workout, but I had nothing left for those last two legs.
We stretched out after completing the relays. Luke and I then did a cool down lap before stopping by a bar and enjoying some cool down beers. Gotta reward yourself after some of these workouts!
Friday preview: Hang power snatches, bar muscle-up practice, and some long overdue double under practice.
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