Alumni Meet

Alumni Meet. Ran the mile in 4:25.54 for 4th and the 5K in 15:46.01 for 5th. Ran the usual 2 mile warm-up loop with Schmeck and put in a good number of strides before the race. I wasn't feeling great but not too bad either. I got a decent start to the race and settled somewhere in the middle of the pack. The pace was slow and we came through 400 in 67 but that was about as uncomfortable as I've ever felt on that pace. The pace stayed roughly the same for the next quarter and I was around 2:13-2:14 at the 800. The pace picked up a bit going into the 3rd quarter but my head wasn't in the race and I fell back. I think I was at 3:22 at 1200, about 10m behind the front group. I got my second wind going into the last 400 and moved a lot on the backstretch. Moving into the homestretch with a lap to go I went by Schmeck and Paul and moved to second place. I started closing on Jake who had a decent lead and managed to close the gap a bit on the backstretch. As I was rounding the last turn I started realizing that I wasn't closing the gap fast enough and then my legs started giving up on me. Schmeck and Paul passed me in the last 20m or so and at that point it was impossible to respond. My legs were really tired after the mile and coming back in the 5K turned out to be a lot tougher than I expected. I knew I was in trouble about 800m into the race and managed to stay with Schmeck and Yermie only for the first 2K, coming through I think in 6:08. It all went downhill from there. I made an effort to move up again when Jacokes passed me but I let him go after a while. Chris Wong went by as well shortly after and I didn't even put up a fight. For the last half of the race I was pretty much just trying to get myself to the finish and not really racing. I was completely wiped out at the end of it and struggled to put in a 2 mile cool-down with Schmeck. Overall a rather disappointing day, especially since I didn't score a single point. The mile was decent time-wise, considering I haven't run one in a long time, but my racing was pretty bad and I should have at least managed to get second place. I've never doubled back in a 5K after a mile so I'm not sure how to judge this but obviously it wasn't a good race.