Joe Shairs and I headed into the 2nd of three BU
mini meets to run the 3000m. My seed time of 10:10 placed me in heat
# 5. The heats start with the fastest heat so that gave me plenty of time to
run a few laps inside to warm up. I
picked the 10:10 seed time based off the two 3K’s I raced in February: 10:11.51
in Providence and the 10:05.47 at Harvard.
The race was just about split between men and women. I raced toward the mid-back of the race after the gun despite having the 2nd fastest seed time for the heat. My focus was to not trip up in traffic and keep my pace as far away from aggressive. I felt like I was in the middle of the competitors
after 1K in the 3:24 range. The mile went by around 5:27.
I felt I had one
surge in the legs to move up and waited for a spot with six laps remaining. I carefully
made my way up to 2nd with 400m to go. I tried to drop the pace in
with 200m to go (I was about 2 seconds back from the leader) and I tied up, even felt a slight buckle from the resisting legs. The lack of mechanical demand in the legs was
unfortunate but real. I finished in 3rd place with a time of 10:03.99. Meet results
I was pretty happy with the effort and execution. I had the mid-race bargaining between the head and the legs. I
positioned myself well at the end but had to respect the speed that I was requesting to go for it. It reminded me of what someone recently wrote in response to training for the mile (speed), "use it or lose it" - Derrick Jones. I did have fun and it was the greatest takeaway I have had in a track race in several years. It lit a fire that I can break 10 minutes (my unmet goal earlier in 2016) and buried the reluctance about racing indoors. I will shoot for
a sub 10 minute 3000m next time.
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