A very quick Weekend

I raced the 800 on Bowdoin on Saturday. The night before, I had trouble going to sleep. I was too jittery as I lay in bed. I had too much energy and didn't get efficient sleep.
Well, come Saturday at sun-rise, I wasn't feeling too tired. We got on the bus, and I took a long nap on the 2 1/2 hour bus ride up to Maine. I ate the usual Honey bunches of Oates, and a bagel with peanut butter a few hours before I was scheduled to race and was ready.

Felt okay during the warm up, but overall I was a little tired and a tad bit nervous. I was just wondering what to expect out of myself, as usual. Chris and I got on the line with a small field of competitors from University of Southern Maine and Bowdoin. The gun went off, and we got off pretty slowly, allowing the others to take it out. John and I had discussed a race plan, in which I was to sit on the leading runner and kick hard the last 200 meters.
Well, I got out slow and tucked into 4th place during the first lap. The race got out pretty slowly, 60 for the first 400m. I moved up to second, and going into the last lap the lead runner, Brett Stein of Bowdoin (Coincidentally, A former Wayland and DCL runner) had a slight gap on me and the rest of the field. With about 100 meters to go, I had no made much progress on him, but Chris started to come to my outside to pass me.
I woke up a little, and started to turn over. It was a pretty exciting finish. Brett held strong until the line while I kicked strong, made up the ground, and outleaned him at the line.
Times: me - 1:58, b. Stein (bowdoin)- 1:58, Chris - 1:59

It was a pretty exciting win. Even though the race was slow, it was nice to see that I could outkick a strong 800 meter runner. What made the win more thrilling was the fact that this was the event and location of my first collegiate win, which happened last year when I won the 1000m at this meet as a frosh.

Overall, the effort was pretty good. It was a small meet, but there were many strong individual performances for a meet this early in the season. Just to name a few highlights: Marc outkicked a Bowdoin runner in the last 50 meters to win the 1000m in 2:38, Paul and Devon raced well in the mile to come 2nd and 3rd with respective times and personal records of 4:21 and 4:24. Dan won the 3000m in 8:55, with Zack close behind.

I personally think the Bowdoin track is as hard as cement. That's a bit of an exaggeration but it really isn't a fast track. It's flat and has a hard surface. This meet never produces the fastest times usually.

Well, to my surprise, I came off the meet feeling pretty good.
Yesterday I ran 12 miles on the indoor track since there was a good amount of snow coming down on us. 12 miles on a 200 meter track sounds pretty boring, however, I ran with a bunch of guys, and the run went by pretty quickly. We turned around every 10 minutes so that we would put equal amount of stress on the portion of our bodies that was produced while running on the turns. I ended up running about 6:30 pace with Ryan and Marc. Pretty neat stuff.

This week will be a down week. Ive had about 4-5 weeks of solid training and I put in a good deal of quality work. Im pleasantly surprised that I havent been feeling tired or that I havent felt a need for a day off like I used to in prior seasons.
This week, I'll take a day off, and run easy.
The Brandeis meet is this Saturday, and it will be my first mile of 2009. I'm more than anxious to get the race underway.
Next week, I might start doubling twice a week if I'm feeling up for it. I've been running about 62 miles per week and I think it will be good for the long term to increase it to 70.

We'll see how things go. I want to focus on staying healthy, running consistent paced runs, and training smartly.
Racing season is underway, it's going to be a fun time.