Benjamin ran the 1500 qualifier heat at the USATF Junior Olympics Nationals in Greensboro, NC. Our plan was to just run the heat regardless of whether he qualified for the final or not because the final is on Sunday. We just wanted a shot at the Utah state record in his age division which is 4:29.36. He ended up qualifying with 4:30.84 setting a new PR and missing the record by 1.48. There were 12 qualifiers for the final, and he was the last one. We learned something at that race. There is a youth racing pattern of a jack-rabbit start, slump in the middle, then a fast kick. We were aware of that, but what we did not realize is that it persists at all levels rather than apply just to the slower runners. The reason perhaps is that most youth train at low mileage and a lot of speed work which primarily consists of intervals 400 meters and shorter. At least I cannot think of a better explanation. The lack of awareness of that pattern killed the record attempt. Adjusting for the impatience of youth but at the same time hoping for some level of sanity among the best of them I told Benjamin to start out towards the end through the first 200 meters, then make his way into mid-pack by the 400 mark hitting 68, then pass 3 runners or so in the second lap which I estimated would yield around 71-72, a few more in the third yielding around 72-73 and then kick as fast as he could in the last 300 which would hopefully bring something in the range of 4:22-4:28 for the whole thing. Well, after the first 100 Benjamin was in the last place, and after the first 300 in 50.644 he was third from the end. That is while on pace for a 67 quarter. His split was the slowest among all the final qualifiers. The new technology now provides the splits every lap with the 0.001 precision for all runners - I love it. If it was available a year ago and I had a chance to look at the splits we would have gotten the record in this race. In the second lap everybody in his heat slowed down a lot. Benjamin learned an important lesson - you must have standards of your own and you cannot just follow your peers. He does know that at a higher level, but in absence of tangible metrics and in the heat of the race he digressed to the standard teenager thought pattern of following the peers. He passed a few, but it was not enough. His split from 300 to 700 was 75.577 - third slowest among the qualifiers. He was thinking that the leaders in his heat were running around 70 (instead of 73-74 in reality), so he was not focused on them, but instead on the midpack guys who were running around 77 instead of what he thought would be 74. I yelled the split out to him and he started moving. My split was more drastic - 76.0 due to the visual inaccuracy, so he pushed it. His lap from 700 to 1100 was 72.841 which now was the second fastest among all the qualifiers. In the last lap he started moving well from 1100 to 1300 but in the last 200 lost steam - probably the combination of fatigue from travelling, high humidity (73%), quick start, and having to surge in the third lap, got to him. Nevertheless he still had a decent finish in 71.774 which still was the second slowest of all the qualifiers. Afterwards we went for a jog. Half way through we realized we did not know where our car was. So we spent the rest of the distance locating the car. To be more exact Benjamin was the one who jogged. I speed-limped on my marathon legs. We flew back the same day and got home shortly after midnight.
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