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DCCLXXXIX

February 7, 2015 (Afternoon)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: 40s outside, warm inside Hanley Center

Comments:
I was quite stressed by school from Wednesday night onward and nearly forgot about the meet altogether. This lack of focus did not bode well for today. I slept rather poorly every night of the week until Friday, when I hung out with Matthew to take my mind off things (perhaps that backfired and I should have just gone home), got around 9.5 hours of sleep and drove to Prep feeling decent and looking forward to my first senior 3200m. I watched Zeke run a strong mile, sat around with Danny and Jackson for a bit then went and warmed up. All systems were in order, no pain in the ankle, legs fine. But after Jackson and I got over to the bullpen and changed shoes, I felt lethargic doing striders and had a premonition the race would not be a good one. The plan was like that of two weeks ago: run calm, cool and collected, push the last four laps and catch stupid people. Mark said he would yell at me if I went out too slowly. Much like my last race, after the first lap there was a long line of people pulling away from me and I was alone. For the first few laps Jackson ran near me but not with me. Sam Blazes went ahead and I tried to do the same move I did during the mile, but he did not budge. At the mile mark (5:12) Jackson passed me, but I made sure to stay close; I left him during the next three laps and then dealt with Sam, hanging on his back for another 400m, passing him with about 800m to go. I felt okay during the final laps and wanted to make sure nobody caught me. My morale really wavered when I glimpsed the clock and reviewing the mental footage now, I didn't kick at all. I've been pretty upset because this mark is just SO FAR AWAY from where I need to be now to get to what I want to run in the spring; while cooling down I just kept thinking to myself, "a senior running 10:26, that's terrible." For Tuesday, I'm considering going out the "stupid way" because it seemed to work for the seven people who beat me. I also need to work on laps 12-15. Alternatively, I could run an even race but make a bona fide attempt to run closer to the leaders. Lastly, Anthony--who didn't seem too pleased himself--said I just ran slowly because we haven't done speed work. Maybe the Bug has a point; one should be truly in shape before one races.