Today was the last indoor of the season for me. Rather than run in the last two meets I decided to race the mile, then start building toward some longer races in the spring.
I was in the “fast heat” with 14 guys and 1 woman, fast being anyone running sub 5:15. I over heard a few of the younger runners talking about their plans to run in the 4:20’s but it turned out to be just a bunch of bluster. The race went out way to slow and after clocking a 36 200m split in 5th place I jumped into the lead and lead the field through a 2:20 half mile (about 4-5 seconds slower than I was hoping for).
After the the half I tried to start pushing the pace a bit harder but with 600 to go I had dropped back to 5th place. 800-1200 I ran in about 69 seconds and did manage to move up to 4th with 400 to go. With 200m to go I dropped the hammer and ended up finish second running the last lap in 31 seconds. I don’t think those 20 year olds where expecting me to blow by them in the last 30 seconds but it was really fun.
Final time was 4:36.8 2 seconds off my outdoor PR but 7 second faster than I ran indoor last winter. I’m going to take it easy the next few weeks and just get some easy running in before starting on a new training cycle for the spring. Next race is either going to be a 10K the last weekend of February or a 10 miler in Poughkeepsie the second weekend of March.
200: 36.05
400: 35.2 (1:11.25)
600: 33.21 (1:44.47)
800: 34.96 (2:19)
1000: 34.90 (2:54.33)
1400: 1:09.03 (4:03.37)
Mile (last 209 meters): 33.43 (4:36.80)
Nice race. I’m a marathon guy and don’t get to race the mile often. But, the few times I do, I always hate when the field goes out too slow. It’s hard to get those jets going if you get lulled into a slow early pace!