One down, countless to go!

My first race of 2014 is in the books.  As I reflect on it, I have mixed emotions.  I finished 5th at the New Balance Games Men's Mile in a time of 4:00.6.  I have since received a lot of support from friends and family, which I appreciate so much.  I never take a supportive comment for granted.  But for those of you who know me, 5th place isn't good enough.  I am my own harshest critic, which can be good and bad at times, but I think it's what keeps me motivated.

The race played out well in that the pacers did an incredible job and had the field on pace to run fast times.  The field strung out into a single file line for most of the race which allowed us to stay out of trouble and not get stuck in traffic or get tripped up.  At 400 meters I felt comfortable, at 800 meters I felt comfortable, and at 1200 meters I felt comfortable, but next thing I knew, there was one lap to go and I had not made any sort of move to try to get closer to the front.  I'm not sure if I had a lack of trust in my abilities or if I had just spaced out too much and let too big of a gap open up between myself and the leaders.  Regardless, I learned a lot from my third mile race since college.  For the opening race of the season, I would give it a grade of a B.  The fact that the pace felt really comfortable is the biggest positive from the race, and that it was an indoor PR!  Looking ahead, I will race again in two weeks on February 7th and 8th in an 800 and a 4x800 relay, respectively.

To get ready for last week's race, Coach Gags cut our workouts to only two for the week.  One strength day on Monday which was a little scaled back in intensity, as well as our standard Pre-meet workout on Thursday.  Other than that, our training didn't change in terms of lifting and mileage for the week.  We got dumped on with some snow mid-week but luckily it didn't change any of our training.  Never let the elements outside prevent you from getting done what needs to be done!

Here is my training log from last week as well as a link to Saturdays race.  Video credit to Runnerspace.com and ArmoryTrack.com

January 20-26

Monday

Morning track workout-

9x600 (1:45x3, 1:42x3, 1:39x3)

4x200 (26-26.5)

Afternoon-

Weight Session

Total Mileage: 9

Tuesday

9 mile recovery run

Wednesday

9 mile recovery run

Drills/Strides

Thursday

Morning track workout
8x400 (69sec) w/ 60 seconds rest
1x300 (40sec)
Afternoon-
Weight Session

Total Mileage: 8

Friday

7 mile recovery run

Saturday

New Balance Games
1 mile race
Total mileage: 8

Sunday

15 mile long run

Total Weekly Mileage: 65

Race Footage:

http://www.armorytrack.com/gprofile.php?mgroup_id=45586&mgroup_event_id=1066&do=videos&video_id=103017

For questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to post below or email me directly at mikeruttrunning@gmail.com!