Superstitions

Yesterday was the official open to my 2010 track and field campaign. In all honesty, I was fairly nervous about how it would go. Training has been going fairly well, but jumping in to a fast 800 for an opening race can be a daunting thing (especially considering my training has been geared towards making me stronger and the only thing I had done faster than 60 pace all year was this past Monday when I did some 160 striders at 52 pace). However, the show must go on, and you've got to race to get better, so I got out there and went after it.

There were good and bad parts to the race. The good: thankfully the pace didn't feel unbearable. I was through in probably 52.8 and it didn't feel that terrible. The bad: I didn't position myself well enough in the first 200 meters and ended up tripping up over a runner I should have been in front of with 150 meters to go. I finished in 1:49.08 and had probably the best opening race to my season in recent memory (or ever, since all of my memories are fairly recent). I'm definitely upset that I didn't position myself, but pumped with the start to the season and knowing that I can pop a 1:48low right now. But, 1:49 will have to do for now, and definitely excited for what's about to go on the rest of the season.

While I was warming up for the race I had the newest Lady Gaga song stuck in my head (ra ra, ga ga ga-ah, ra ra, ga ga)...which brings me to the title of this journal entry, and a question that I pose to the reader. In terms of superstitions, when do we kick them and when do we keep them?

During my warmup I thought to myself: "What if I run really well? Does this mean that I need to have the Lady Gaga song stuck in my head for every race?"

And its a very interesting little conundrum. If something works for you even if you don't like it that much do you do it still?
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Training this week went well. Other than the snow that shortened my long run, I was pretty syked about how it went. Got in 68 miles and even with a race did a tough 4xmile workout on Tuesday. Ran 4:52, 4:47, 4:40, 4:37 with two and half minutes rest in between each one. Tough stuff for a guy like me, but got through it and then was ready for the race.

We also made a little progress on my racing schedule. It looks like I will be up at the Armory for a mile next weekend at the New Balance Collegiate Invitational and then will be heading to Boston for my last tune-up before USA Indoors to do an 8 Valentine's weekend. Pretty excited about what's to come....Let's Go!

(ps - enjoy yet another dunk as this week's picture)