I showed up to practice tonight expecting to pace our freshman to a 4:45 1600m, but they didn't show. So the rest of us debated on what our workout should be. It evolved from 1600m + 4x400m to 2x1600m in 4:45 to "let's see what we can do for 3200m." I really did not want to stress my ankle beyond the 4:45 but somehow forgot about it as we got ready to run.
The plan was for me to pace the group at 71s for as long as possible, which I thought was a joke given my recent training and tried to tell the guys I was fat and out of shape. But they didn't listen. So two 71s into the TT and I knew I was in trouble; we slowed to 4:51 through 4 laps and they continued to follow. Breathing wasn't too bad but it was the legs that got heavy really fast. I plodded along, there must have been a 75 in there once or twice, I'll figure it out in a sec, and finally with 2 laps to go Anthony (our stud sophomore) goes by. One of our seniors also goes by and on the backstretch I decided to "push" the last two. Meaning I stopped slowing down. I caught the senior again but was too tired to encourage him to follow and he fell back a bit. I was shocked to see the clock at 8:35 with a lap to go, I figured my death was much worse than that, and managed to close to cross in 9:45. Anthony blitzed a 64 final lap to finish in 9:37. It seemed like a medium effort for him, too, while I was in agony.
The ankle felt fine and I'm honestly ecstatic to have run 9:45 in my current state of fatness. A day later and my legs are angry with me, but it has me excited for getting in good shape this winter.
Splits:
71.5ish
2:23 (71-72)
3:36 (73)
4:51 (75 oops)
6:05 (74)
7:20 (75)
8:35 (75)
9:45 (70) | 