I got home from work today about 1630 and was dog tired. I went to the bedroom and stretched out on my bed for a few minutes and almost fell asleep. I checked the Weather Channel, changed into my running attire and went across the street to the high school track.
It was 86 with 14mph SSE winds gusting to 21. I forget what the humidity was but the Heat Index was 84. The wind was nice and annoying during the workout. I ran my warmup in 16:21 with my first mile easy in 8:31 and my second mile of strides done in 7:50. I took a minute to stretch out, pop my back, retie my shoes and get a sip of water and I was off.
I ran my first 200 in :44.59. 200s really irritate me because I just can't seem to run the pace I'm supposed to but when I check my 200 split during a 400 rep I hit :43 right on the nose. It really hacks me off something fierce. I jogged my 200 m. recovery in 1:16 and hit the next 200 rep in 43.30, which was a lot better. I ran a 400 recovery in 2:30 and ran my 800 in 2:55.94. I hit the 400 of my half in 1:30 and had to drop the hammer a little to make up some time. The wind really became a factor during the 800.
I ran my 400 recovery lap in 2:36 stopping for a sip of water and ran my next 200 in :41.12. I have no idea what happened there. Took 1:29 to run the 200 recovery and hit my next 200 in :42.35. 400 recovery in 2:57 and nailed my 800 in 2:54.25. I hit the 400 in that one in 1:29 and had to pick it up again that last lap. I ran another 400 easy in 2:31 and stretched for a minute before running my cool-down mile in 8:28.
Aside from the incredibly irritating 200s I am pretty happy with this practice. When I did the math I realized that I am disgusted with 600 meters of my 2400 meters worth of quality work. That's 25% of my workout. If I had to give myself a letter grade for today I would only give myself a B minus. I only ran one of my 200s on pace and I didn't run an even pace on my 800s even though I hit my time goal for them. I still feel pretty good about Saturday though.
This weekend was the IHSA Boys' State Track and Field Meet. I wished I'd been there to see the 3200 meter run for both A and AA. In the AA race the top-three finishers were all under 8:58. That is pretty frickin' awesome! My high school alma mater placed 8th in the 3200 meter relay in 8:12 but they were within a second of 5th place. A kid from my hometown that I remember from when I worked at the movie theater, he used to come in all the time with his mom, placed 4th in the 3200 with a time of 9:42. That goes pretty nice with his 4th place finish at the State CC meet last fall where he ran 15:18. My friend, Jordan Patterson, placed 12th in the 3200 in 10:03, only two seconds out of 9th place and the last all-state spot. I think he'll be up there in the top-5 next year, especially if he puts in a good winter. He ran 15:30 last CC season but had an off day at State and ran 15:47 for 30th place. He has the talent to be a top-ten finisher in CC next fall, if not top-five.
Time for bed.
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6 comments:
When the IHSA goes to three classes for track next year (a travesty, in my opinion), which class will your friend Jordan's school be in?
I think they are delaying the three class switch for track but cross country will become three. I think he will be in single A still. I think they only split enrollment in half in AA so the new AA will have schools with enrollments of less than 2,000 and AAA will be above that. Most of the downstate AA schools will still be AA, they just won't be competing against the Palatines, Wheatons, Glenbards or Yorks. I think it is crap too but I also think it will be interesting to see what happens to the quality of the State races. I still think the new AA will still be pretty competetive and that it will take 15:10 or so to make all-state most years and 14:40 to win. I could be wrong but there isn't any stopping it now.
From the IHSA website:
Three class system enrollments
A = 0-603.09 E/B, Williamsville
AA = 603.1-1508.0 Spfld and Peoria schools as well as Chatham and some smaller Chicago area schools like Crystal Lake Central. Stanford Olympia, IVC too.
AAA = 1508.01 and up. York, Naperville, Pekin, Edwardsville.
I suppose that my history matters here. When I was in high school, cross country and track were really individual rather than team sports, and as far as individual races go, I want to see the best runners in the same race at the state meet. In states with 3 or more classes, regularly the two best runners in the state will be in different classes, and as a result, they don't race one another at state. I think that's unfortunate.
On the other hand, from a team perspective, certainly there's a big difference between being a school with 750 students and being a school with 3000 students. I can understand why a school like Chatham thinks that it simply lacks the numbers to compete with large suburban schools.
The Glenwood cross country teams don't usually have a hard time making to the state cc meet. This year they had guys run 15:06, 15:55, 15:59, 16:15, 16:24 and the other two under 16:50 and they got 27th in the team standings. Just off the top of my head, Im pretty sure that at least 13 of the teams ahead of them would be 3A teams next year. Elmwood, the Class A champions, would have placed 23rd with their scorers running times of 15:18, 15:42, 15:54, 16:03 and 16:12. Imagine if it was just one class.
I think it is an okay idea but I don't think they should add anymore classes after this. Texas and Missouri both have at least 4 classes for CC and the times are pretty slow on average. I imagine that Elmwood would have been a class A or AA team in Texas or Missouri and I probably could have been a two or three time all-stater with the times I was running. 16:26 should not get you 5th place in the State meet. Maybe 105th in A and 205th in AA.
Aaron,
Thanks for the nice posts about Jordan! We are heading to Oregon tomorrow for his Pre-Senior mom/kid trip (a tradition I created with his sister :-) Seeing all the Pre sites and he is running a race on Pre's trail Saturday June 9th called Steep Hill Chase 5K. The we will be at the Prefountaine classic Sunday 6/10!! Check out the runners he will get to see at Hayward Field!
http://www.preclassic.com/2007startlists.html
See you at work in a couple of weeks!!
Peg
(AKA Jordan's mom)
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