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| Checking on Lukas. No headband since it wasn't a race for me! |
11:30pm - walk into the bed room...pass out cold, sleep for 10 hours with only a few bathroom breaks.
9:30pm - after a nice cooldown and stretch, I watch some of the races with Columbia kids going on at the armory. I pop out and meet with Christine, Krisch and Delilah at Coogans for some post-race chili (terrible call, I was sweating profusely as I ate it), a beer, and a lot of complaining about how much my legs hurt. We finally finish up dinner and train home after a long day.
8:30pm - cooldown with Russell Brown (he won the Boston Indoor Mile last weekend in 3:54) and Mike Weisbuch through Washington Heights after the race. Lukas was happy with the pace job, I think he and his coach were a little too ambitious with the 4:15 first mile. Either way, the kid is going to be very, very good. He has his stuff together mentally. Zach, a coach at Columbia, asked me how mature he was mentally compared to me and I put it at a 24...I scored myself at a 2.
8:14pm - with the crowd the loudest I've ever seen it at the Armory (minus the time I won the Indoor Heps Mile in '07--at least that's what I keep telling myself), Bernard Lagat crosses the line in 8:10. He makes it look easy as he runs his last mile in 4:02. Lukas doesn't quite hold it together and runs 8:43...good enough for a 10 second PR and the third fastest indoor time for a high schooler ever.
8:03pm - in a rabbit situation, I get the coolest pre-race introduction I probably will ever receive. They get the whole thing, all my cool accomplishments, and play hard with the Columbia 4x8 at Penn to get me a nice ovation from the college kids watching the meet. Granted my intro is 4 minutes shorter than Lagat's, but still. Nerves settle down, gun goes up, crack!, it's go time. We immediately get in line: Robbie Andrews, Russell Brown, Bernard Lagat, Me, Lukas V, and then Harbert Okuti, a local runner. It's a little confusing getting the splits since we started 18 meters back of the finish line for the 2-mile. I stay what I think is the right distance behind Lagat and we start to get into a rhythm with the front pack pulling away ever so slightly. You can find Lukas's splits here and know that I'm anywhere from .2 to .7 seconds ahead of him throughout the rabbit job. Right before the race the director tells me that if I can stay longer I should, but as soon as I hit 1800-meters (my job is 2k), I know I only have 1 lap left. So I make it that lap and turn into spectator. The other two rabbits do the same and we watch from the inside of the track...up close and personal. Meanwhile I was sucking for air and my legs were HURTING.
7:05pm - Russell and I head out for a warm-up. We head north from the armory in Washington Heights. About 8 minutes in (we're planning on going out 10, 10 back for 20 minutes), I realize that this is the farthest north of the armory I've been on a warm-up...and it's dark. "Yo man," I say, "I could probably wait and tell you this, but I'm gonna throw it out there that I've never been up here before, so I'm not exactly sure how safe this is..." Russell immediately slows down, "Alright, we're good, let's turn back." So we only got in 19 minutes.
6:00pm - show up to the armory and we get to hang out in a room with just the 2-milers. It's pretty cool getting to hang out with Lagat and realize that before a race he gets a little nervous and likes to relax with his legs up just like you do. He is an extra nice guy, as is Lukas.
noon-4pm - A whole lot of nothing. I do some napping, eat some lunch, watch Wisconsin whoop up on Ohio State in the second half. It's a lazy day when you have a night workout.
11:00am - Mmmmm, mmmmm, a delicious breakfast burrito. You get yourself some corn tortilla, steam it up a bit, throw on some black beans, add in some scrambled eggs, don't forget the cheese, toss on a little salsa and top it off with some avocado...hot damn! You've got yourself a meal! Probably a little much for a day when I'm essentially rabbiting, but...
9:30am - head out for a shakeout...although it's not really a shakeout. Because you can't just rabbit and count it as a workout in my new running life. We had to make this a real day of training. I got my brother and my buddy English to meet me in the park and we rocked 4 miles at 5:30 pace through Central Park.
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So there you have it. A Saturday of running. Overall, it was a 15 mile day with a 4 mile tempo in the morning and a 2k in 5:20. I'm getting in shape, but a long ways to go 'til Outdoors.
And, as a plus, got paid, so a little will be going to ThinkDetroit again!
And, check out http://www.njnytc.com!
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