18:43 5k.

Either I'm a pretty good judge of my own fitness or I'm good sneaking under whatever limits I set upon myself.

So I ran 18:43 this morning after stating that I hoped I could run under 19:00.

After one mile (5:56) I started thinking I had a shot at running under 18:30, but by two miles (12:05) I knew I didn't have enough left to run the last uphill mile fast enough.

The course was downhill for the first mile, flat for the second mile and uphill for the last mile or so.

As usual, a bunch of kids went out way too fast and were huffing and puffing after half a mile. I settled into fifth place after passing the group of oxygen indebted youngsters. At one intersection early in the race, no one was posted to direct traffic and there was a frighteningly close call when one runner started into the roadway before realizing that a car was coming fast from his left.

There's not a lot to say about the race from my perspective. I went out under control, passed fourth place a little after a mile and finished fairly strong with a 6:38 for the final 1.1 miles, which is 6:02/mile pace.

I've noticed that races seem a lot less dramatic now that I'm older. I used to fear the discomfort, get nervous about where I'd place and worry that I'd bomb. Now races are much more matter-of-fact affairs for me. I know about what pace I should run, I don't really care where I place, and I rarely bomb anymore, mostly because I'm smart enough to go out conservatively. I don't crack late in the race because I don't let myself back off when it gets unpleasant and I don't let myself overrreact to the discomfort like I used to. If you do this enough times, you eventually understand that the last mile is going to hurt (if you do it right) and that it sucks but that it inevitably ends, so there's no reason to be overwhelmed by it.

The way that I race is probably part of the reason that I don't find much drama in races anymore. While everyone else takes off like it's the running of the bulls, I am content to settle into a pace I'm pretty sure I can maintain the entire way. What usually ends up happening is that if I catch someone late in the race, it's because they went out too fast and, as a result, they've got little fight left in them because they wasted it all in the first couple of miles.

The other reason I rarely find myself in any kind of battle toward the end is that my fitness level usually gets me stuck in no man's land after a mile or so. Today there were three guys fighting for the lead and the top two ended up going 16:21 and 16:28. The next guy was also well out of sight by the time I finished. So there was a huge gap between third place and me. The guy who finished fifth was ahead of me for the first two miles, but when I caught him just past two miles he was cooked and he may have finished half a minute or more behind me. In other words, the guys who train to race usually end up way ahead of me and the people who don't usually end up well behind me. Most of the time my race is more like a time trial than a real race.

Nonetheless, I feel good about how I ran. I averaged just a little over six-minute pace off of practically no speedwork. I'm thinking that by the end of the cross country season I'll be back under eighteen minutes. I'm still planning to run the Nittany Valley Half Maraton in December, but after running six-minute miles for 3.1 miles, the idea of trying to run 6:15 or 6:20 pace for 13.1 is pretty daunting. But that race is still over two months away, so while I've got a lot of work to do, I've got a lot of time to do it in.

I've also got the benefit of plenty of fat I can shed which only compounds the gains I make in fitness. Even though I've lost about fifteen pounds so far this year, I'll still pretty heavy for a guy who's 5'7" at 164 pounds. I'll be fast again, it's just going to take a little time.

Things have been happening so quickly that I haven't had the time to maintain a normal life, coach and then blog about it. Our team went through a stretch of six meets in forteen days. There's no way I could sit down and flesh out all of the stories.

Instead, I'm just going to talk about myself for a minute here. I hope you won't mind.

Tomorrow I'm running a 5k road race. It's my first quasi-serious road race in over a year, so I'm a little nervous, in part because I don't want to run poorly, but also because I have a small hope that I'm going to pleasantly surprise myself.

I've already promised myself that I'm going to try to run under 19:00. I think this is doable considering that I ran 20:04 three weeks ago on our cross country course. The race I'm running is pretty flat and I figure the change of surface alone is worth thirty seconds or so. I'm in much better shape than I was a month ago, so I don't think that's too ambitious.

I'll post more tomorrow reporting on how the race went.

First two meets.

Last Wednesday we ran against Penn Cambria in our first meet on our home course. For a lot of our runners, it was their first race ever other than our time trial.

After we ran the time trial I had told the kids that their times would improve in the first race because the weather was sure to be cooler and that it couldn't possibly be worse. I was half right; it wasn't worse, it was identical: low-eighties, sunny, humid.

We knew little about PC's girls team because they were only returning two girls from last year., one of whom was fifth at districts in 2006 and, based upon her time in a road race a month earlier, was almost certain to win. The other was about four minutes slower. Based upon the results of our time trial, I predicted that Mary, our best runner, would probably finish in second place. Little did I know that apparently PC's entire soccer team joined the cross country team. At first we weren't sure if they would even field an entire girls team. When they showed up it looked like they had enough members to field a football squad.

While the girls lost the race 17 to 48 -- I'm starting to think soccer players make good cross country runners -- most of them set personal bests. Mary finished fourth in 24:34, muttering "Sorry, coach" as she ran by me near the finish, as if not finishing second was somehow shameful. The next three girls finished within a minute of each other. Nicole ran 26:24, an improvement of several minutes over her time trial. Chelsea was next in 27:01 and Colleen was close behind in 27:14. Colleen's last 1.1 miles was 9:14, fastest of all of the girls except Mary.

The day before the meet I cautioned the kids that sometimes it's not a good idea to wait until the last 50m or 100m to kick, since just about any runner will sprint from that far out, and if they're running next to someone with more pure speed, they'll probably get beat. However, not many runners are willing to run really hard for 1/4 mile at the end of a race and that they might be able to pull away from someone who might otherwise beat them in a sprint by running really hard for the last 1/4 mile.

Colleen apparently took this advice to heart. Her last 1/4 mile was faster than just about every runner in the race -- including the girl who won and finished over five minutes ahead of her.

Megan finished last, but she did beat her best time from the time trial by about a minute, running 35:05. She stopped to walk frequently, but finished with a good sprint, after which she proceeded to drop to her hands and knees and throw up four or five times on the grass behind the soccer goal. You just don't get this in other sports.

In they boys race we were a little more competitive, although we also lost that race 23-35. On the bright side, Pat won overall, running 18:11, a full two and a half minutes faster than he had in the time trial. Disappointingly, Scott ran 19:51 which, while it was 33 seconds faster than his time trial, was much further behind Pat than we thought he would be. Scott had been talking negatively before the race, saying things like, "I don't feel a good time today." Maybe he was just sensing that something wasn't right or maybe he just psyched himself out. We wouldn't know until Saturday.

Andy, who is just coming back from hand surgery, and who was running with a cast, ran 21:52. Tim, our former quarterback, went out in 6:02, which put him just eleven seconds behind Scott. I was excited when I saw him trying to be competitive, but I was concerned that he was going to fade, and he did. His second mile was 7:48 and his final 1.1 was 8:30. He finished in 22:20, just a second ahead of Nathan, who had been almost 40 seconds behind him after the second mile. Nathan ran a fairly smart race and beat a PC kid with a nice kick at the end.

Our last runner, Derrick, a freshman, finished far behind the field in 32:32. He said at the second mile that he had forgotten to take his inhaler, which made me angry. What is it with these kids with asthma forgetting to take their inhalers????

Anyway, Derrick joined the team two weeks after practice started and had never really done any distance running before. Not surprisingly, he was unable to run the whole distance. What he would do was sprint until he was too exhausted to do anything but walk and would then walk for several minutes. No matter how many times I told him to pace himself, he kept doing the same thing. I didn't get upset about it because it was, after all, the first race of his life.

Today we ran the Forest Hills Invitational, a race of about eighteen teams. The course is much flatter than ours, basically making a giant loop around a bunch of cornfields. There are two short, steep hills shortly after the first mile, but other than that, it's a pancake.

Last year, our boys finished next to last and we only had one girl on the team. I hoped the boys would finish higher than last year and that the girls would set some PRs. I was pleasantly surprised at how they exceeded my expectations.

The girls finished 13th out of 16 teams, but every single one of them set a PR. Mary ran almost 20 seconds faster than she had on Wednesday while Nicole ran over a minute faster. Colleen PR'd by more than 20 seconds. Megan was the most impressive PR of the day. She finished over four minutes faster than her previous time, running 30:45.

Before the boys race, I had a talk with Scott and told him that Pat was absolutely not 1:40 better than him. I told him that I expected him to run under nineteen minutes and finish in the top 25, which would get him an award. This seemed to boost his confidence a bit. While he didn't get an award -- he finished a hearbreaking 26th -- he did run 18:53, only 31 seconds behind Pat.

On the bus trip up to the race, Andy had been telling me that he was going to run under 21 minutes. I told him I was going to hold him to that and remind him of it during the race, which I did. Andy was close, but didn't ended up running 21:10, which is almost 45 seconds better than last race. Tim ran a much, much smarter race. He went out somewhere in the mid-sixes and finished just a few seconds ahead of Andy.

The big surprise of today, though, was Derrick. He was running in the junior varsity race. This morning Vicki asked him what he wanted his best time to be by the end of the year. He said he'd like to be running in the 23's. Vicki said that was a rather big leap to make and that maybe he should shoot for something more reasonable, like trying to get under 30 minutes today, and potentially under 26 minutes by the end of the year. Later, I took him aside and told him that, while it would have to happen gradually, there was no reason not to shoot for the 23's by the end of the year.

He went through his first mile in 7:20 or so -- behind Andy, but still faster than I wanted to see. My dad and I were communicating from different parts of the course by walkie-talkie. After the first mile, I told him that Andy was running well and that Derrick had probably gone out way too fast. Then I ran to the two-mile mark to wait. At about fifteen minutes into the race my dad radioed and said, "Derrick just went by and he's ahead of Andy!" Sure enough, here came Derrick, looking confident. I told Derrick that if he kept it up, he'd be in the 24's today.

After Andy, who also looked like he was on his way to a PR, went by, I ran back to watch Derrick head up the first hill and saw him walking. I thought, well, here we go, the catastrophic collapse of what could have been a good race for him. I yelled at him to start running again and he suddenly yelled, and I mean yelled, "RUN THROUGH THE PAIN!!!" and start sprinting. My first thought was that Derrick was embarassing himself and that I wanted him, for his own sake, to stop acting so eccentrically. I yelled back at him that he needed to slow down. He didn't. Derrick may be getting in better shape, but improving his ability to follow certain instructions may take longer.

I then went near the finish line to see how he'd do. When he came into view, about 200 yards from the finish, he was walking. I ran over to him and told him he didn't have far to go and that he needed to get running again, at which point he yelled once again, only this time not forming words, but this time just sort of roaring and sprinting as if he were about to attack someone nearby. I told him that no one wanted to hear him make noise and that I wanted him to focus his energy on running. His screaming/sprinting quickly tired him and he began walking again, this time a maddening fifty yards from the finish. I, not following my own advice about screaming, started telling him to, for God's sake, sprint, the finish line was right there! Derrick, all emotion, once more burst into a full sprint, although, thankfully, a silent one this time, passing one more runner before the finish line. He finished in 24: 37, shaving a whopping 7:55 off of his time from Wednesday.

If only every kid at every meet could have the feeling of shocking everyone on their team and setting a personal best by nearly eight minutes...

Tomorrow is our first meet. We'll be running a dual meet on our home course against another team from our conference. Because it's the first meet of the year for both teams, it's difficult to predict our chance of winning. If you go strictly on our time trial times, we'll lose badly. However, I'm not too concerned with those times for several reasons.



First, it was much hotter and more humid on the day we ran the time trial than it will be tomorrow. Second, none of the team was wearing spikes or racing flats. Third, it wasn't a real race. The cooler, drier temps and the fact that the kids will be (or should be) wearing racing shoes will almost certainly lead to faster times. I don't know how some of them will react in a race situation. Some kids are workout heroes and others really only show up on race day.



I have the feeling that Pat and Scott are of the latter type. I was pretty surprised when I beat them in the time trial. From what I'd observed to that point, I shouldn't have beaten either one of them, even though I was wearing racing flats and they weren't. In Pat's defense, he had just come from soccer practice and was surely tired. I'm not so sure why Scott couldn't stay with me. The way Tim has been coming along, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he beats one or the other of them. I can see Tim going to the well more readily than them.

10 miles Sunday.

I woke up with a slightly scratchy throat yesterday and haven't felt well since I finished my ten-miler, so I'm taking the day off.

On a positive note, American Matt Tegenkamp got fourth in the 5000m at the World Champs with a fantastic kick after a brilliantly run race during which he sat on the lead pack for 4600m and then powered past most of them in the last 200m to finish fourth. He missed bronze by .03 seconds.





The only runner with a better kick was the winner, naturalized American citizen Bernard Lagat, who passed the entire lead pack as easily as if he had just hopped onto the track with 200m to go.

Lagat also won the 1500m. I'm more excited for Tegenkamp because Lagat was a world-class runner prior to becoming an American, whereas Tegenkamp was born and raised in the US. Tegenkamp has also quietly and steadily developed himself into a world-class runner while receiving little of the hype that has accompanied Webb's and, to a lesser degree, Ritzenhein's every race.

That is not to say I'm not a fan of those two, because I am. I feel particularly bad for Webb, who, after his amazing track season, appeared poised to medal in, if not win, the 1500m . Instead he finished eighth.

He was, for an athlete, unusually vulnerable and candid in his post-race interview. I think he needs to mature emotionally before he'll be ready to really compete with the big boys. There is a coldness and detachment the best competitors have that he still lacks. Webb wears his heart on his sleeve when he races while best racers seem to have what I can only describe as an heartless disinterestedness. Webb seems to want to be a hero, while the people who beat him treat the race like a hunt for prey.

Ritzenhein seems not to have found his niche, which, in my humble opinion, is on the cross country course and on the roads. He simply doesn' t have the wheels to compete at the 5000m or 10,000m on the track. He is a tough competitor on grass and asphalt, where pure speed means less and this is where I think he should focus.

The other good thing is that Sunday marked six weeks and one day since I've had any alcohol. That is the longest period I've gone without a drink since my sophomore year in college. Now I've just got to cut out snacks that come in foil bags.

Recap

Monday - 4 miles, including 3 x 300m hill. We were going to do four repeats but ran out of time.

Tuesday - 4 miles. Was going to do five miles but after we ran to St. Mary's and back, my dad had the group run a small loop in progressively faster times until all but one runner were eliminated. I deliberately lost on the second loop because I didn't want to do any hard running the day before a race. I jogged around while the game continued, but then stupidly jumped in on the last one and ran nearly all out, after which my legs began reminding me that I had run ten miles two days prior and hills the day before. I jogged another mile to cool down and felt so lousy doing ten minute pace that I thought it would be best for the time trial the next day if I didn't do anymore.

Wednesday - 5 miles, including 5k time trial in 20:04. Wednesday turned out to be the hottest day we'd had since the previous Friday, which I describe in an earlier post. It was in the mid-80's and humid; not ideal for a race. Surprisingly, I won, but I had several advantages I would not have had under most race circumstances. First, I was the only person who wore racing flats, which, over 5k, are worth perhaps half a minute. Second, Pat, who has been arguably our strongest runner thus far, arrived from soccer practice just minutes before. The third advantage was the most important one: no one else seemed to care as much as I did.

I was just hoping to run under 21 minutes and thought it pretty unlikely that I would run faster than 20 minutes. After a first mile in 6:17, I was in second place to Pat, who went through in 6:15. I passed him less than half a mile later, just before we turned from the grass field which surrounds the school to head uphill into the woods, and he was already breathing hard. The second mile (whose accuracy I doubt) was a 6:41. Once in the woods, a narrow and root-ridden trail leads uphill for approximately 300m, during which I started thinking, "I've got to do this once more before the finish?"

When you reach the top of the hill, there is an equally long descent out of the woods. When I got back down to the field in front of the school there was finally enough open space for me to look back and see what kind of lead I had. At that point I had maybe fifty yards on Pat and Scott looked like he was catching him and would pass him soon.

When I entered the woods for the last time, I was pretty sure I was going to hold them off, but when I turned around about 200m before the finish, Scott had put a lot of distance on Pat and seemed like he was running faster than I was and I was a little worried that he might catch me. In retrospect, I should have realized that there wasn't enough real estate for him to catch me as I finished 20 seconds ahead of him, but had we been running another half mile I think he might have.

Pat finished exactly 20 seconds after Scott and Tim finished about 1:40 after Pat.

The times turned out to be slow, but we told the team to forget about them because of the heat and the fact that, for many, it had been their first race ever. We race on the same course this Wednesday and I expect many of them will run much faster.

Thursday - Five miles on the treadmill. I hate the treadmill. How can eleven minute pace feel so hard?

Friday - Three miles at PSU's track. I was going to do some striders, but I felt so crappy from the beginning just running ten minute pace that I decided that with a six-miler scheduled for Saturday morning, I was better off cutting it short and letting my legs recover. I'm hoping that if I take the six miles extremely easy that I'll bounce back enough to get ten miles in on Sunday.