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W&L-VMI Carival: I've Waited Years for This Tonight

March 23, 2012 (Night)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: 66 Dark/Humid

Comments:
I was eyeing the the weather forecast for this meet all week, hoping it would be cooler, and noticed that the high for today was supposed to be 82, but the 10k started at 9:20 pm so it should be cooler.

Coach Lanese called me last night and told me that the Coach from Christopher Newport had told her he had a guy running the 10k who wanted to work with me and try to run 32:45. Coach helped me find him at the meet and we both agreed to help each other and run 78s.

It was still hot most of the time I was at the meet, so I spent the afternoon constantly hydrating and due to the unusual timing of the race, snacking sporadically in an attempt to make sure I was properly fueled. My stomach was marginally upset on the warm-up but nothing out of the ordinary. I had trouble getting my legs to loosen up as much as I would have liked before the race but they weren't feeling horrible.

I went out in second place almost straight from the wire with another kid named Tim Smith in first, running a 77.5 for the first lap, pretty much exactly where I wanted to be. The announcer liked the fact that Tim Smith was in both first and second place for the 10k and I found myself smiling in amusement at random people cheering for Tim Smith as I ran, in particular one Shenandoah girl standing on the curve just before the homestreatch who would cheer me on as I ran by. I remember the other Case runners mostly telling me I looked smooth and reminding me to be patient. I felt pretty good for the first two miles, as Coach yelled me splits that were 78 or 79. The other Tim Smith surged to a 76 at some point and dropped me such that ahead of me I could see the empty swath of track stretching out into the night. I would occasionally see someone coming up ahead for me to lap, usually one of the girls but sometimes a slower guy.

Somewhere in the middle I dropped my first 80-second lap and Coach Lanese told me I needed to pick it up a bit, so I pulled myself back together for a 79. As I entered the mid-to-later stretch of the race, I became aware that I was on pace to hit my old 10k PR almost exactly if I ran 80s for the rest of the race. My legs were tight and heavy and I felt as though my form was becoming slightly unstable, like I was striding longer with one leg than the other though I had no idea which. However, 80s seemed very doable, and I closed my mind out of the matter as I noticed the laps melting down toward the end, running a mix of 79s and 80s. I felt as though I was surging slightly.

With four laps to go, Coach Lanese yelled to me to try to run four 79s to close it off. I knew if I did that I would PR by 4 seconds. I was well aware of the incredible finish I pulled out down in Atlanta when I ran the previous PR and knew I would have a lot of trouble closing like that again. But I was galvanized with a different kind of fury tonight. I wanted to finally put away the last 2.5 years and run a PR in something. I managed to tell myself not to think about the finish until I reached the last 300 and clear my mind until that point. I brought myself up on my toes for the last straight away and finished in 32:56 for a very long awaited 10-second PR. I closed in a 73, without the flair of 70 I finished in last time, but actually ran a faster last mile than last time. I ended up in second place, losing only to the other Tim Smith who ended up beating me by 24 seconds, and ran the entire race but the first 100 meters in second place.

I ran tonight with a purpose: to run a PR for the first time in any distance since September 19, 2009 when I ran 25:59 at Calvin. My name has too long been conspicuosly absent from the list of those who had run a PR. I have always thought my 10k PR was one of my weaker ones, but I'm am thrilled to have finally broken any of them. I've waited years for this tonight.