Training Race #1 - The Mile

The nice thing about the Decatur Running Club is that they have training races of varying distances every Tuesday until August. Tonight they offered a mile and three mile training races but in coming weeks will also offer two, four, six and seven mile options, all for the low price of $1. I am getting ready to ramp up the training for a PPR peak in mid-September and I wanted to see how the legs felt with fast stuff and I wanted to have a fast effort to base my speedwork paces on.

The races are held on a bike trail in Fairview Park and are out-and-back on rolling terrain. In fact, the first quarter of the races is almost completely uphill. The nice thing about that is that you get to run down the hill the last quarter.

Us lucky few, mostly kids high school age or younger, and me (the nearly 31 year old guy) were released about 2 minutes after the three mile people. I thought this would be nice to have people to catch but I was wrong. I took it easy the first quarter and let one of the high school boys lead up the hill. At the top I stayed on his heels and as we approached the half mile turnaround he slowed and I dropped him. Unfortunately I ran up on the back-of-the-pack three mile people and got hung up behind one as I came to the switchback. I think this cost me a few seconds but I clicked my half mile split in 3:03.38, uttered a profanity and surged very aggressively. I reached the 3/4 point, approximately, in 4:39; uttered another profanity and pretty much threw myself down the hill to the finish and crossed in 5:51.90. I ran the last half in 2:48.52 and waited for the second place kid who finished in 6:18. After catching my breath I ran a two mile cool down and drove home.

I'm pretty certain that I could have run 5-10 seconds faster for a full mile on the track and I'm pretty happy with my run. I will probably skip next week's training race to do 800s in the grass at the park but will probably hit the three mile option the last Tuesday in June.

I've got to get in shape for the PPR because Dan-oh and Lance ran 19:23 and 19:50, respectively, at the Scholastic Challenge last weekend. I can't let THOSE guys beat me. . .

Great job fellas!