June 26, Saturday

My performance at the Big Bang Mile yesterday left me with a good deal of confidence about my level of fitness.  On a very humid morning with the temperature already in the upper 70’s I made the decision to warm up in the gigantic, air conditioned Bell Labs building. To begin with the rest room facilities inside were far more civilized than the Portapottys at the starting line of the race.  The cavernous center space was about 68* and had a carpet around its almost 400 meter  circumference.  I had promised myself to do an extensive warm up in preparation for this race as I described in my previous post. So, I ran with sweats on around this carpeted surface doing long pickups for 30 minutes.  I should note that this space was essentially empty on a Saturday morning providing a completely clear  warm up opportunity.   I lay on my back with my legs elevated for 10 minutes before I jogged to the starting line about 200 meters from the building.

I approached the race with trepidation because I had no  confidence in my ability to judge pace after over a year without a competitive race. The goal was 7:00 with even 1:45 quarters. I ran a comfortable 1:37 and 1:48 to arrive at the half in a respectable 3:25.  (There were clocks at each quarter mark.) That half mile time gave me confidence that maybe I could break 7 minutes. I tried to push the 3rd quarter.  But I would describe a similar performance by one of my runners as a weak effort.  1:55     I managed to recover and run a 1:45 final quarter to finish at 7:05.  I was left feeling somewhat disappointed, but convinced that I am capable of running much faster.

Stats remain consistent and positive.