The Mile

Tonight was a really fun time. The University of Dubuque hosted Hempstead's indoor track meet and added a 1600 meter adult open race. Bill, Rob and I ran in it along with several familiar faces from the running community. I got to say that my nerves really got to me today, the combination of running such a fast paced race combined with a pretty large crowd had my stomach spinning pretty well. Standing in the field among hundreds of athletes and coaches, listening to the race announcements and the crack of the gun all brought me back to highschool again... it was a lot of fun to experience that one more time.

So onto the race... there were about 12 of us shuffling around at the start, most of us looking at each other trying to figure out where to stand without letting anybody notice :) There was one quick announcement by the official "smile and have fun because the crowd loves this event" (haha) and the gun blows. We all take off into the first turn where I fall into third place, I wasn't quite sure how to pace myself so I let the first two run ahead knowing the pace was a little quick. I heard the first split called out at 37 seconds (200 meters) and figured I was about on track but kicking myself that I didn't write down my splits as Bill did. For me that was where I stopped paying attention to my watch as I fell into race mode and drifted around the track, so focused on the race I completely tuned out the crowd. I kept it steady and didn't lose ground to the first two and felt pretty well, with two laps left I picked it up a bit and on the final lap I dropped the hammer and full out sprinted the 200 meters... I knew I was pushing hard and it was verified by Allison who said my facial expression looked pretty scary :) My finish time was 5:22 (3rd place) which gives me a good starting point. I immediately knew I could have pushed it harder but I was not disappointed at all, just glad to have run it and learned something from it, I'll be excited to come back next year and improve my time. Also pretty impressed I felt so well after already running nearly 45 miles this week... so now to rest a bit for tomorrow mornings run with the group, it's been a good week to run! :)