Fleet Feet track meet: If you think a 5K is short, try a 1 or 2 mile!

Because, why not run a 3200 m on the track against a bunch of teenagers in ridiculous heat and humidity?  Clearly I am getting crazier by the day, but this free Tuesday night track meet seemed like a great way to knock out another 2018 short race, and I ended up knocking out two!  Who cares if I was old enough to be the mother of most of the other females in the races and ran approximately my half marathon pace?

If you can't laugh at yourself, you're missing out

When I mentioned running the 2 mile at this meet, my coach said to do it as a "legit workout" (even though I'm not starting back to real workouts until August), but to keep my typical training pattern up I ran a normal run the morning of the evening meet.  Instead of doing an easy pace 4 mile double, I planned to run the race (2 miles hard along with a warm up and cool down) for my first double in 5 weeks.  Now that I'm writing all of this out, it seems like a worse and worse idea...you know what they say about hindsight!  But it was free and at a track only about 6 miles from my house, so it seemed like a crime not to do it.  If I was truly being crazy I'd have run to and from the meet as well (goals for next time!).

We arrived at the track around the 7:00 p.m. meet start time.  The website had the 2 mile (which was actually a 3200 m) listed as the second to last event in the approximately 1 hour meet, so I expected to start around 7:40 p.m. at the soonest, and thought I had plenty of time.  Jon and Albani positioned themselves in the stands, and I went down to the track to talk to a friend who'd asked me to be on her 4 x 100 m relay (clearly they were desperate for a fourth person).  She told me that they'd announced that the 2 mile was the second event; they were running things in the reverse order as they were listed on the website.  So I had only the time that it would take to run the first event, the 400 m races, to warm up!  I hoped there were a lot of people in the 400 m and took off!

I ended up having time to run 1.4 miles (although I had to sacrifice a pre-race pee stop for it), so it wasn't terrible - but I need at least 2 miles to warm up properly for anything fast, preferably 3; I always run the course before any 5K.  I did not do any strides, drills, leg swings, etc., but I thought running with the time I had was the best way to maximize it.  I ran until they called the 2 mile, and then jumped on the starting line dripping sweat.  They ran men and women together, so it was a decent sized group.  The announcer (who was also jumping into races between announcing the meet) said, "We've got a ringer in this one, Sara Ibbetson" and after asking him what that meant, I told him that my 2 mile pace was about the same as my marathon pace so not to expect much.  Then he announced "Her 2 mile pace is her marathon pace, but it's fast, almost an Olympic Trials Qualifier marathon!", which was one of the highlights of the meet for me.  Then we were off!

3200 m start

I got out pretty slow even for me (1:36 first lap) because I wasn't warmed up enough, but then I settled into right around 1:30 for each lap.  I wore my Garmin for the data, but they were calling off the elapsed time each time we passed the finish line so I knew where I was at whether I wanted to or not.  My elapsed times were 1:36, 3:06, 4:37, 6:07, 7:39, 9:11, (did not get lap 7), and 12:15 for my total.  My 1600 m splits were 6:07 and 6:08 so I was very even.  I turned off auto-lap on my Garmin since I knew it would be off on the track, and my Strava was definitely off.

The race itself was pretty anticlimactic; I took the female lead within the first 200 m and spent the first 800 m passing teenage boys.  For most of the race I was pretty much in no man's land; there were 3 men in front of me but they were way ahead; the first male broke 10:00 and lapped me (hangs head in shame), and 2-3 were 11:10ish.  It wasn't long before I started lapping people, and some I lapped twice, so I had to run in lanes 2-3 quite a bit.  I got out-kicked in the final 20-30 m by the meet director/announcer/local Fleet Feet owner who I'd passed before the mile mark; I didn't realize he was close until it was too late and he went flying by me (although he probably ran a 1:15 last lap or something so may not have been close until then).  I had fun, and knocked out my first 2 mile tempo of the season!  Although I didn't have any performance expectations for this race for many reasons, running my half marathon pace for 3200 m seems pretty sad -- but I'd seen the post below from Kellyn Taylor a few hours before the event and it made me feel better that she'd run slower than her marathon pace for pushes on a 10 x 1 minute fartlek that same day!

Right after the 3200 m, I got Albani into the 200 m.  They'd originally said you had to be in 7th grade to participate in the meet, but they let her in as a 5th grader.  She beat the other youngster in her heat and ran a 0:42 200 m, which I thought was really good!  She had fun but she didn't know that you were supposed to stay in your lane on the 200 m because she's only watched me run long track races where you don't stay in your lane, and I didn't think to tell her.  Oops!  She only moved over 1 lane (towards the outside, so she ran farther), but it might have been to cut off her competitor...

Look at that stride!

Relay baton practice

Shortly after, I got recruited to run a 1600 m on the distance medley relay at the last second.  Nothing like - surprise, you're racing a mile starting in 30 seconds!  I ran an honest effort, but it felt much easier than my 3200 m effort, so I was surprised to squeak in under 6:00 (5:59); I guess I was finally warmed up after the 3200!  For anything short, I cannot make my legs go any faster, but I can keep going.  I couldn't run any faster than 12:15 on that 3200 m, but I think I could have run 3-4 3200 m reps at that pace.  I'm not sure if that's age or all of my marathon training or what, but I have a goal to work on it!  It's hard to judge too much by this event (or the summer 5Ks I've run), though, since the heat and humidity were so oppressive.

DMR start

Albani's 4 x 100 team plus one

Then Albani and I both ended the night by starting 4 x 100 m relays.  I told my relay in advance that my 100 m pace, much like my 1600 m and 3200 m pace, was also my half marathon pace, so they were warned.

Albani enjoyed Zach and Shelby's dog just as much as the running and ice cream bars at the end!

This dog stole the show

All in all, this was a really neat event that our local Fleet Feet put on.  It was great to see runners of all abilities out there enjoying themselves.  Rumor has it that they might include a 5,000 m next year, and if so I will probably try to race it "for real" (e.g., not run a lot of miles that morning or work non-stop all day), although a July evening in Missouri is probably never going to be the time to run a fast time in anything, so I should probably just stick with the goal of running to and from the meet.

Team Ibbetson

Jon was a great cheerleader but I couldn't get him to run!