400s and Capitol Area Classic

It was a little warm and windy when I left work today and I wondered if it was going to be warm enough to run a good practice tonight. I think that soon I am going to have to get up early to get my quality practices instead of doing them after work. When I decided to drive to the middle school track around 1700hrs tonight it was 88 with SSW winds at 19mph gusting to 26. The humidity was only 30% and the dreaded heat index was only 86. I decided to go for it.

I drove to the track, did my customary mile warm-up with a mile of strides in 8:26 and 7:39 (16:06) and stretched for a few minutes. I kept the t-shirt on through my warm-up and into my 400s before I ditched after rep #2. The goal today was to run 6x400 in 1:27 with 400 meter recovery jogs. The HR monitor, despite having a new battery, decided not to work today so I hung the damn thing from my bedroom door and have decided to leave it there from now on. I think it has become a superfluous piece of equipment and I refuse to let it dominate my runs anymore. I was actually not paying attention to it 90% of the time and calling it a "damn thing."

I digress. The goal was 1:27 per repeat and I led off with a picture perfect 1:27.17 followed by a 2:30.81 jog around the track. Throughout the workout I was actually making it around the track in about 2:15 on the recovery laps but was taking a few seconds to get a little water in the mouth and to spritz myself with a spray bottle. Spritzing was a good idea that I think I may incorporate into other workouts. I ran rep #2 in 1:27.50 (2:30.92), #3 in 1:27.90 (3:30.37 to change into my new flats and jog my recovery lap), #4 in 1:26.30 (2:37.20 took to long spritzing), #5 in 1:27.55 (2:30.62) and #6 in 1:26.88 (2:19.76). I took a few minutes after the last 400 jog to stretch, change into my P.F. Flyers and spritz and then I ran a cool down mile. The last lap of my cool down I ran barefoot around the infield and ran my c/d in 8:27.

When I got home I walked across the street to the high school track and watched my friend Jordan Patterson run the 3200 at the Capitol Area Classic. Jordan has been struggling with laps 5 and 6 of his race and his mom thought maybe if I was there he would try harder to improve those lap times. Jordan likes to run from the front and tends to go out too fast. I can't say too much because that would be a bit of the pot calling the kettle black.

Jordan took the race out in 1:11.56 and then settled back and let a few other guys take over from there. He hung in 4th or 5th place until the mile mark and ran splits of 1:15.42 (2:26.98), 1:17.80 (3:44.78), 1:19.58 (MILE: 5:04.36), 1:17.18 (6:21.54), 1:19.08 (7:40.62), 1:18.61 (8:59.23) and 1:09.87 (10:09.10, MILE: 5:04.74). He ran 800 meter splits of 2:26.98, 2:37.38, 2:36.26 and 2:28.48. If you take those middle 800s and add them he ran a "middle" mile of 5:13.64. Not shabby, but if he could drop those lap times a second or two from laps 4, 6, and 7 he's looking at closer to 10:00. In fairness to Jordan, he caught the leader on lap 5 and powered away from him the last three laps and won by about 12 seconds. Another Jordan, this one from Auburn and named McCarty, finished in 4th place with a time of 10:35.11. Not bad for a freshman. Actually, not too bad for anyone.