Yeah for Track!

As I packed my running bag this morning, I saw tiny black things at the bottom and thought "It must be track season". I raced at Pueblo last weekend to wake up the fast (well, faster than my slow) twitch muscles in preparation for Mt. SAC. The CSU-Pueblo track facility is amazing, but the darn turf is filled with little rubber pieces. They seem to just jump into my bag and shoes. It's amazing that there are any black rubber pieces left at any of the turf facilities with the way they like to attach themselves to everything. I should send them back so they don't have to pay for new materials. I have to admit I was a bit nervous for the 1500m race. I'm never sure if my fast gears are available and I know I'm really not a middle distance runner. The race went better than expected, although the first lap was a 78!! I was supposed to be no slower than 74, but I was sitting in the pack to prevent myself from leading from the gate. Of course when I hear the lap time I panicked and took the lead with some force. No more jogging on the track ladies...let's get this back on pace. I was successful in bringing that lap to 71 to get back on pace and then just held on tight to the finish. The lovely ladies from Adams hung on with me and on the last lap I had to dig deep to get the faster gear working. There was no true kick, more of a push to keep the lead and break anyone who thought they could out kick me. Funny enough, my time of 4:36 (10 seconds of my PR) became the stadium record. I'll take it. Since this was more of a workout day than a race day, I agreed to racing the 800m too. What was I thinking. The last time I liked this race was in high school when it was still a distance event. It sounds like Scott and I had the same race...I was in the outside alley and was gobbled up within the first 100m. I had a great first lap of chasing them down for 67s, but couldn't hold that for the 2nd lap. A great workout, but definitely not my cup of tea. It was so much fun to watch Shannon and Jay race the 5k. You guys are troopers from putting up with that wind that decided to show up in the afternoon. A big 'thank you' to Coach Chad Perry for letting us race.