New Balance Twilight Series, Meet 2

Full results here.

I took another drive down to Bentley College in Waltham, MA tonight to run the 1500m in the second of three New Balance Twilight Series track meets. The main goal tonight was to run as fast as possible and get some real speed in my tired, old legs. I had to come up with a seed time and based on my 5000m race at the first of the Twilight meets (15:39) I calculated my equivalent 1500m time to be 4:11.7 using McMillan's running calculator. The last time I ran a 1500m was 10 years ago and I ran 3:49.01 so I did not want to enter a seed time over 22 seconds slower. Call it pride, but I knew there was still some magic left in my hat and I could pull out a time faster than 4:11 (and change). I went out on a limb and entered 4:06 (equivalent to a 15:18 5k and roughly a 4:25 mile). It turns out that this was fortuitous because I was the slowest seed in the 2nd of three heats.

I recovered remarkably well from the Hollis Fast 5k on Wednesday night and did not feel any soreness or fatigue tonight. I had to wait around until 8:10PM to race and there was a slight breeze on the track, but conditions were otherwise perfect for running fast - about 63 degrees. There was a rabbit for our race and he was going to take it out in 62-63 seconds/400m for the first 800m. Again, this was a bit fast for me so when the gun went off I tucked in the back part of the pack. I was not prepared for how physical the race was - there was a lot of pushing and shoving and jockeying for the inside lane in the first lap. I am sure it used to be like this but it has been so long since I have run the 1500m I kind of forgot. I got out at a decent pace but had to come to a near dead stop when some guy cut in front of me at about 300m to get the inside lane. I passed through 400m in 66 seconds - not bad, not good. I tried to pick up the pace over the next two laps and split 2:12-2:13 (66-67 seconds) at 800m and 3:17 (64-65 seconds) at 1200m. At this point I felt really strong and was not tying up at all so I made a surge for home. The same guy that cut me off at 300m did it again here and anyone who has run a 1500m/mile race knows that if your momentum is interupted at this point it is very difficult to recover from it. I tried to get the legs going again and push the last 200m but I did not have another gear like I used to and I crossed the finish line in 4:06.87. I closed the last 300m in about 49-50 seconds which is not bad, but it was actually the slowest part of the race. I actually feel pretty good about the time since I hit my seed almost exactly, which was very optimistic, and that is the fastest mile/1500m I have run in a long while. This should make going out in 4:50-4:55 for the first mile tomorrow morning feel much easier.

I saw Tom Derderian, the head coach of the GBTC, taking pictures tonight so I will update the post with official times and pictures when they are posted. Now it is off to bed because I have to meet my team mates at 6:45AM for the drive down to Lincoln, RI for the Rhody 5k in the morning ...