Continuing
on with the 2012 season on the track, I completed a rare weekend double,
running the 1500 meters on Saturday and the 5000 meters on Sunday at the
Portland Masters Track Classic. Held at
the Mount Hood Community College track in Gresham, Oregon, this meet commonly
sees a handful of good Portland area masters show up for the middle and long
distance events. However, for some
reason this year the turn-out was very slim.
After
braving an exciting but rain-filled day on Friday as a spectator at the Olympic
Trials in Eugene, I got my weekend of racing started with the 1500 meters on
Saturday afternoon. Like Friday, it
continued to rain off and on all day, however the temperatures were perfect and
the wind never became a factor. From the
start list I saw Jonathan Swanson was in the race and I knew there was at least
one speedster in my age group who would be going out fast. With Kevin Paulk also in the race I figured I
would have someone to run with for part of the race. Kevin was quickly on his way back to fitness,
and by later in the summer would undoubtedly be leaving me behind, but based on
his efforts as a pacer for Nolan Shaheed in the Portland Track Classic Masters
Mile, he and I were in the same ballpark.
As we
were warming together up before the race we discussed where we wanted to be
time-wise and hatched a plan. We would
work together and I would take the first lap in around 70-71 seconds and Kevin
would take the next lap in roughly the same split. After that
My
goal for the race was to at least break 4:30, but I really wanted to get close
to 4:25 and also set a new PR. In 2011 I
never managed to do any races on the track, but in 2010, upon turning 40, I hit
the track hard and ran a PR 4:28.xx while finishing well back in the pack at a
college meet at Lewis and Clark College.
It would be great to better that time today.
As
expected, Swanson was gone with the gun and as planned I moved into second with
Kevin behind me in third. Unfortunately,
I got a little too eager and went through 400 meters in 68 seconds rather than
the planned 70-71. Kevin was smart and held
himself back rather than getting sucked in by my too fast start. I held the second place position, passing
through 800 meters in 2:21, which was more or less the pace I was looking for,
but the fast start was catching up with me and I was starting to tire. I tried
to focus and maintain for the third lap, but started to falter, passing 1200m
in 3:39. Kevin was never far behind, but
with 200 meters to go, I dug in, got up on my toes and pumped my arms for a
reasonably strong finish. Jonathan
Swanson ran away with it finishing in first in 4:14.90, with me in second in 4:29.76
and Kevin in third in 4:34.52.
Afterwards,
I was feeling pretty good and was looking forward to the 5000 meters the next
day. Unfortunately, the start list for
that race was a little thin and I realized I might be all alone….again. In my one other 5000 meter race on the track
this season at a Masters meet in Coos Bay in May I lapped the entire field and
was relegated to a solo run, a time trial of me against the clock trying to click
off 80 second laps for a finishing time of 16:40. But on that day I fell off pace and could
only muster a 17:03 finish.
It
looked like this day was shaping up to be a similar solo run, although the
weather was a bit better with no wind at all, cool temps, and partly cloudy
skies. As the first event of the day,
getting us runners off the line was a bit shaky, as the starters pistol miss-fired
three times before we finally got underway.
I went to the front and quickly settled into my planned pace of the same
80 second laps. Dammit, I was going to
run 16:40 one of these days! My training
and other results said I should be able to do it, I just needed the right race
and to stay focused. But doing that all
alone is harder than it sounds.
My
first 1600 meters passed by in 5:21, pretty close to right on pace as I began
lapping people in the third lap. Going through
3200 meters in 10:50, I was losing a few seconds each lap and knew that 16:40
was out of the question, but I might still break seventeen minutes. I did my best to stay loose and keep my head
in the race, but I never was able to pick it up and lost a few more seconds
each lap. Coming down the straight away
with 2 laps to go they rang the bell.
What! No! I shouted, “Your count
is wrong, I have two laps to go!”. I am
glad I was paying attention to my lap count, but how hard is that really? Just look at the watch or clock and you can
be sure where you are. I sure knew that
I wasn’t about to run 15:40 for 5000 meters!
In the end, I managed a time of 17:06.40 in a race that was sadly very
similar to the one I ran in Coos Bay, down to nearly identical splits. I think I need to find a deeper and faster
5000 meter race on the track to nail that elusive 16:40. Maybe one of the Club Northwest all-comer
meets is the best option.
From
the posted results at the meet, I saw that at the meet on Saturday morning,
Bill Aronson ran a very speedy 34:45 for 10000 meters. From talking with others who also ran the
10000 meters, it was pouring rain with lots of standing water on the
track. I am not disappointed that I
chose not to run that race, but I would have liked to have had someone of Bill’s
talent with me in the 5000 meters. That
would have made for a much more interesting twelve and a half laps.
Since
I like to over-analyze my races and look at track stats, I thought I’d see how
my last three races on the track compared to one another and where they
predicted I should be for a well raced 5000 meters. Those races were the Masters 3000 meters at
the University of Oregon Twilight Invitational, the Masters Mile at the Portland
Track Festival, and the 1500 meters at the Portland Masters Track Classic. Using the IAAF scoring table all three were
between 539 and 543 points, with 541 a reasonable average. That is fairly tight cluster. But most interesting is that using 541 points
as a target, my predicted 5000 meter time should be 16:38.70.
Distance Time Points
1500 4:29.76 539
Mile 4:50.54 543
3000m 9:42.39 540
5000m 16:38.70 541
Perfect,
right in the ball park of what I am shooting for in my training and racing
goals. Now, to find the right race to
make it happen.
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