View Workout (Matthew Simonson)

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Race

February 21, 2010 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
Woke up 2 hours before my race, ate a bagel and drank some apple cider an hour and a half before. Not ideal, but didn't cause me any trouble. Got in a solid warm-up starting about 50 minutes ahead of time; jogging outside followed by sprint drills and leg swings. Then proceeded to jog and striders pretty much up until race time. Felt pretty loose and warmed up by the time my race began (which I'd been worried a lot about when I arrived).

Started out conservatively and would have been way to slow had it not been for Anthony shooting out ahead of the pack. I stuck with him for two laps, focusing on how I should feel in the moment rather than what was coming next. A high school kid got ahead of us in lap 3 and I hung on to him till the half way point, at which point I was feeling confident and pleased with my 800 split (809m split, really).

Made a move in the 5th lap to get around the high school kid who was starting to flag, but he surged so I tucked in on the curve and waited to pass him on the next straight away. Really started to buckled down and go in lap 6, taking the lead and picking up the pace. Briefly lost track of what lap I was on, but the remembered what my 1200 split was supposed to be and figured out I hadn't reached it yet. With 500m to go I got up on my toes and stayed up for the rest of the race, driven by an constant fear that Anthony was about to surge. Final sprint was faster, but not quite all out. On the whole, I was pleased with my performance. Splits were 74/74 for the first half, and 2:28/2:28 overall - beautiful. Definitely felt like an early season meet. Probably 90-95% effort, but I'm glad I made a conscious decision to be conservative rather than aggressive, because this was my first mile race in 2 years.

Explored Normanstone Park and Dumbarton Oaks on a shakeout run later that day. Felt pleasantly worn out.