I’d been focused on indoor track for a few months. During cross-country, teammate Scott Grandfield asked about putting together a CMS team of 55+ to take a shot at the American Record for the 4 x 800 meters relay. The record was “soft”, but it’d be tricky finding four healthy teammates over the age of 55 who would be willing to run an indoor track 800. Most of the guys are road runners but we all have a background in track (among other things). It really didn’t take much convincing to get Dan Verrington and David Principe on board. Then it was just a matter of finding a meet that had the relay AND importantly had the proper officials and timing to record an AR attempt. The USATF New England season opener at the new New Balance track fit the bill.
In the weeks leading up to the race I did a few shorter speed
workouts on the treadmill which helped to build up my confidence. We’d
need to average under 2:39 per person to break the record (10:37). I had
one workout in which I finished with a 2:36, which very nearly beat my all-time
best as a 50+ runner. My goal would be to run close to 2:30. I
guess I should have taken into account that I don’t race well in the afternoon
or evening. The meet started at 3 pm and the relay was the final
event. I chose to do an open 800 as something of a warm-up. Dan and
I did a nice warm-up run along the Charles River and I did some more running on
the fantastic 130 meter warm-up track in the facility. I felt very flat
lining up and never really got going. I ran a 2:35.05 which was a 50+ PR
but much slower than I’d hoped for. Now I was hoping I could at least
maintain that in the relay.
I did a few miles warm-down then hung out for a few hours
before doing another warm-up, then another, and a lot of walking around to stay
loose prior to the race which went off after 6:30 pm. Fortunately we had
three other teams sign up for the relay (ad you need at least one other team
for it to be official). Doug Deangelis showed up to support the squad (I
had approached him about being a substitute should one of us get injured prior
to the record attempt). He was instrumental in giving us all splits
during the race. Dan led off with a solid run, running a very even race
an coming through in 2:40. I got the handoff in fourth place and focused
on two who weren’t too far in front. I had a good opening lap then must
have fallen asleep out there with a terrible second a lap. I woke up and passed
one of the gals in front of me and tried closing on the other. I nearly
got her with 100 to go when she found another gear. I rumbled in with a
seriously disappointing 2:39 and handed off to David. He looked strong
running a well paced 2:34 and handed off to our anchor/instigator Scott
Grandfield. Scott assured me he would go out crazy and then proceeded to
run a 31 opening 200! Fortunately he settled into a more reasonable pace
and brought it home in 2:33. We took nearly 20 seconds off the old record
with a 10:18. Doug had the right frame of mind stating that we’d left
room for improvement.
Open 800
Place
Athlete
Team
Time
1
John
Dugan
Austin Prep
2:11.86
2
Jack
Quinn
Unattached
2:15.19
3
Robert Sheehan HFC
Striders
2:17.55
4
Gerard O'Gorman
Unattached
2:21.81
5
Gabriel Malloy
Unattached
2:23.46
6
Joshua Mercado
Heartbreakers
2:26.48
7
Mark Capparella
TVFR
2:30.35
8
Jim
Watts
Mass Velocity TC
2:34.00
9
Dave Dunham
CMS
2:35.05
No comments:
Post a Comment