Today, I ran my first "official" mile time trial, eclipsing my goal time of 5:48 by 3 seconds, with an early season 5:45.1.
Splits were only slightly erratic: 86, 2:54 (88), 3:22 (88), and then about 83
for the kicker. I warmed up well, then settled in behind the
start line, said “Set!” out loud (and there were some people around), then
scuttled up to the exact one-mile start line, and said “Boom!” (slightly quiet,
as I was embarrassed). Although I was technically one second over my goal time at 3/4s, I felt in control, and was certain the Norton barrier (search blog for significance of the Norton Barrier) was in
hand. It was only a question of how much I wanted to kick and how far under I
wanted to go. I even told myself a few times during the mile, that I didn’t
want to suffer too much early in the season.
Even after surgery and a long time
off this winter, I seem to be almost right back where I was in 2011, when I ran
5:40 for my first mile time trial on April 16. In fact, I’ve been running a bit
more mileage this year, so it’s possible have a better base, but simply not the
speed yet.
After I finished, I said “I hate
running” and temporarily wondered what it would be like to simply enjoy running
and never really race or do time trials again, except for fun. But that thought
quickly passed, and I ran two quarters in 86 and then 83.6 a few minutes after
the “mile time trial.”
Mark
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