Saturday, June 29, 2013

A Lame Mile But 2nd in the US?

I was so not up for running the mile this year. Normally I'll start with minimalist speedwork about five or six weeks out, with the Flint Hills mile in mind. Starting at 30-45 sec pick ups at mile pace, and building to weekly sessions of 1.5 to 2K of running at mile pace or faster. My foot has been touchy this spring, and whenever I pick up the speed it is sore for a few days. And face it, at 55 aerobic running just feels better.

Nevertheless, the mile on the Flint Hills Series calendar and it's usually the one chance a year I get to run the mile. So I planned to at least do it.

Or not. The smoke rolled into town on Wednesday and we had "Unhealthy" air quality conditions (AQ index of 150-200 ppm of PM 2.5) in the morning. So on Thursday morning I went for a run up 45 min run up on Skyline Ridge, where the air was a bit cleaner--at the upper reaches of the smoke cloud. I didn't plan on doing the mile at all. But by 3 or 4 PM the wind picked up and blew much of the smoke out of town and you could see several miles.

Ugggh. Had to do it.The saving grace this time was that I wasn't hyped up/nervous.

I lined up and just kept repeating, it's only a workout it's only a workout. My plan was to go 77-78 on the first lap and then drop down, hopefully finishing in something around 5:05. I executed the plan okay, but a bit too slow laps 1,2,3, on which I hit 400 m in 79.8, 2:37.7, and 3:54, running with high schooler, Joe. I did run the last lap in 74, but it wasn't enough to hold of Joe who is more fleet of foot. So 5:10.7 and 4th place. I could have been a little to a lot more bold on the first two laps in particular. Oh well.

Was surprised to see that the time is currently (as of June 29) the second best outdoor mile time this year in the US for age group 55-59, 5 seconds behind Brian Nelson's 5:05.45 set back in February (http://www.mastersrankings.com/rankings.php?pevent=ONE MILE RUN&sort=Asc&sex=Men&pseason=Outdoor&cyear=2013). Also, it's a new age group record for the Flint Hills Mile, ahead of Jim Loftus's 5:14.9 from 2006.

So I'm not getting any faster with age--and Estle would be the first to tell you that although I'm pretty  lame (he always cackles and makes fun of me for whatever reason). However lame that may be, I appear to be slowing less than my age group peers.

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