Wednesday, August 15, 2012

River Rivals - Finale

Dan and I headed to Newburyport for the fifth and final track meet in the River Rivals series.  The Winners Circle has done an excellent job putting on these meets that attract over 100 runners each week.

As we've done for most of the meets we signed up for the 2 mile and the 800 meters.  I convinced Dan that we'd have fun trying the 100 meters and he agreed, so we signed up for that as well.  It was warm and humid but nowhere near the hottest or most humid night we've had.  We headed out on the Rail Trail for an easy 3 mile warm-up.  After a quick change into racing flats it was on to the track for another mile with some strides. 

The 2 mile turned out to have it's biggest field this year as a bunch of kids from St John's prep showed up for a workout.  Dan and I would be sticking to our typical plan (80 seconds per 400, switch the lead each 800).  Dan took us out quickly after we passed a couple of the HS kids who ran the first 100 hard before easing back.  We were a bit too fast at the first lap (81 for 418 meters) and then settled in.  I did not feel good, I think the turn-around from Sunday's race was just too short.  I took over at the half and one of the HS kids flew by running a low-70 400.  We kept our pace and hit the mile in just over 5:20.  Dan took over and it seemed like he upped the tempo, I just couldn't keep contact as we passed the HS kid and Dan gapped me by a couple of seconds.  I closed a little on Dan but not enough to take over with 800 to go.  With 600 to go it seemed like Dan was coming back and by 200 to go I caught and passed him.  I continued on for a 2 second win in 10:40.

We had enough time between the 2 mile and the 800 to do another 1.5 miles of easy running on the track.  A bunch of the St John's kids were also running the 800 so it looked to be fast.  I felt slow.  Surprsingly no one took it out and I found myself leading for the first 100 meters, then Dan went FLYING by me.  He hit the 400 in 71 and change and I was close behind in 72.  At that point two of the HS kids took off running a 65 last 400.  I struggled to close on Dan and never really made up any ground, hitting the line in 2:25.3 in fourth place.

We had a little time until our heet of the 100 so we continued running on the track and I even practiced a couple of starts.  We were the last ones to line up but not the only ones declining to use starting blocks.  I got a good start but Dan flew by about 50m in and both of us laughed out loud as he put a lot of ground on me.  The guys in front finished a solid 5-6 seconds in front of us, who would have thought a 100 meter dash could be so lonely?  I ended up 5th in a field of 5 running a life-time Personal Best of 16.9.  The only reason it was a PR would be that I've never run in a race of 100 meters prior to that.

I could be wrong but Dan and I may be the only guys around who have raced both 100 meters and 100 Kilometers.

Splits:
2m = 81.0 / 80.0 / 79.5 / 80.6 / 80.6/ 80.6 / 80.8 / 80.8 / 77.6 = 10:40.9

800 = 36.7/ 36.0 / 35.7 / 36.9 = 2:25.3

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