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FLRC Newsletter - Mar 2004 |
| Trackos | |
For all the true trackos out there like Rick Cleary the Younger, who at 195 might have been slowed enough to run right with John Saylor and me, here are the splits (goal was 41 seconds per lap): 41, 82, 2:03, 2:44, 3:27, 4:09, 4:50, 5:30. The old-timers (Larry, TJ and Rick among others) will notice a shocking lapse in the usual perfect pacing of John Saylor. I attribute that to the fact that we passed a bunch of people in the fifth lap and, while it seemed we were zooming on pace, they were merely slowing down much faster than we were.
Here's my step-by-step account. I was placed about fourth from the inside and John about seventh. At the start I held back and immediately dove to the inside to secure a place on the curb and, when I saw John coming down, made room for him to get to the inside. Knowing his metronome-like pacing, I trusted him to do 41 second laps more than me. My plan was to pass John and share the pacing load at the half. On the turn to the finish line in the fourth lap, I pulled out, but I had not seen that we were coming up fast on a runner and John popped out in front of me. I didn't want to make a double pass, so I dropped back behind John. We caught Terry Habecker and another runner just past the finish line. I went wide again, but John was running so strongly I couldn't make a pass, so I decided to tuck in for awhile. As we started the fourth quarter I tried again to go around John, but he put on a burst and didn't let up. He had a step on me as we passed the finish line to begin the eighth lap. It was all I could do to hang on. I came off the last curve wide and John and I just ran as hard as we could to the finish. Looking back, it was not bad strategy, although forced. I remember that I never felt really wretched like in most mile races, but rather just couldn't force my legs to go any faster.
Caleb Rossiter remarked before the race that he seemed to be losing it fast competitively. Every competitive runner over 50 has told me that they plunged in ability to run good times somewhere between 50 and 56, and that certainly was the case with me. Even Harold Nolan, multiple 50s national champion, finally has started looking a little old at age 56. He ran "only" 5:05 or so, but he was still running sub-5:00 last year. Caleb, Joe Daly and I had an interesting conversation about the use of drugs by masters runners. There is some suspicion that, with the lack of testing, there may be more use going on that suspected years ago. My only drugs are Powerbars, Gatorade, and beer but they don't seem to be getting very good results.
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