Chattanooga District meet

It was an unbelievably beautiful day for weather.  Waking up to 49º on the mountain, it was a dry 72º on the track with a slight tailwind up the home stretch.  Nice blue rubber track at the GPS School in Chattanooga... (great facilities, obviously a rich kids' prep school).  Compared to KY last week, this meet was extremely well staged and run by experienced 'track people' from the local CTC.

Went OK.
56.78 - 400m
25.49 - 200m

I skipped the 100m.

200M
As I was getting warmed up for the 200, I noticed soreness in my left quad and ham.  The right side seemed ok.  The left ham was the one I tore in June '12 running the 100, so I feared this race and ran it gingerly.  Unfortunately, I got the dreaded lane one.  There was only one relatively fast guy (who ran a 12.79 100m), but I passed him on the turn and won the race by at least 15 meters.

400M
The 400m went surprisingly well.  It was just 45 min after the 200m so I didn't have a real sharp edge but it felt so much better than last week.  This race I really stayed relaxed and didn't make my move til about the 240m mark and felt fairly strong coming up the stretch.   I wasn't as tired as last week.  Of course, conditions were much better.  There was no competition.  My friend Bill M., a distance guy who had run a smokin' 4:58 1500m just 90min previous to this race was in lane 4, I was in lane 5 ... so I ran alone again, never saw anyone after the first 50m, despite all 8 lanes being full.   Bill took second, about 8 seconds behind me,  (ran high 64's), so I won by about 50 meters.   He said that he felt I was "accelerating away from him" on the last 150m ... so maybe this time my splits were more even.   I don't know.   I do think being at 'race weight' definitely helped.  I was at least 2 lbs lighter than last meet, probably about 140-141 lbs.

Forward...
I need a recovery day.  Sore.  Hopefully be back on the track Monday for some tempo endurance.  I talked with James Chinn and his advice was to just be careful since these silly meets don't mean anything.   He's totally right, and he's been running very fast this year:  24s/54s and has just entered M55.  2015 is where I need to be aiming.  But I want to get the '100m monkey off my back', so I'm scheduled to run one in 2 weeks.  I love that race but have been injured the last 2 times I ran it.  I just want to get the confidence back and get one under my belt.  If anything happens, I have 9+ weeks before indoor season to recover.

Sometimes I think I need to train harder than most people to get the type of performance I expect from this small weak frame of mine.

Next meet on Sat. in Jackson, TN... I will probably just run the 400.

Two Bills