How to get an 10-second PR -- go for a 'punishment run'

"I'll teach me", is the phrase that comes to mind :)

I was upset enough about what I felt was a poor performance in the mile on Sunday, that instead of awarding myself ice cream and the rest of the day off, I took myself out for a punishment run. Abby and a friend visiting us from England were doing some of the Boulder 360, which is a 20-mile (or so) "citizens" bike ride on some gorgeous trails round the city. My original plan was to ride with them; I decided to run.

Our house is on the route, so we started straight out the front door, and I soon realised what a really bad idea this was -- the first 6 miles are downhill, some of it VERY downhill and my lungs and legs were bursting with the early pace. I had to let them go, the short-cut the route to end up doing 11 brisk miles in the afternoon heat.

The run had the required effect. After an easy track session of a a series of 150m repeats on Tuesday, I lined up on Thursday evening at the first Boulder Road Runners all-comers track meet of the year. The last time I'd raced 800 metres was in August last year, in the middle of a sub-5 minutes for the mile specific program. I'd clocked 2:40.9, suffering all the way.

This night my mantra was "It doesn't matter how you feel; just do the time". I'm kind of getting used to the antibiotic-induced weakness I feel when warming up. Doing my final 100-metre strides down the back straight I even managed to reframe my state of mind to, "This is JUST how you need to be feeling to run fast".

I was so worried about blowing up, that I'd plan to negative split it. But the presence of a trio of super-fast guys meant we went out so fast I nearly came unglued. I slammed the brakes on so fast after the first 100 that I'm sure it looked like I was going backwards for a few metres. Into the second lap I was hanging behind another runner and when he started to slow down I briefly ran into the back of him; I just don't know how to run this thing and still had no confidence in my speed. Eventually he was slowing so much I had no option but to move alongside with 250 to go... and then there was Angelina.

Angelina is a super-fast college runner who has interned with Ric as a coach and is supposedly injured. I say supposedly, because now she is back with the group she seems to spend most of the time sprinting full pelt across the infield screaming encouragement at "her" runners. And when I say screaming... well she scares the heck out of us! So there she was at 200 screaming at me to go past him, "He's yours! You own him! Go! Go!" It was the adrenalin jolt I needed...and I was so surprised how much kicking I had left in me.

So it went 18 for the first 100 -- ooops too fast -- so slowed up to do first 400 in 78, then did 2nd 400 in 72 to go 2:29.7.

Apparently no-one does that kind of negative split in an 800 -- but that is simply because I don't know what I'm doing. Now I know I can go out a lot faster and survive :)

The great news is this is a PR by nearly 11 seconds. The idea of keeping this pace going for 4 whole laps to hit my sub-5 @ 55 goal seems outrageous, and yet... I think I can do it for 3 laps once I get the hang of pacing myself properly... and it is only June. By August or September? Yes, I think I can do it.

* Boulder Road Runners Summer all-comers track meets are on June 19, July 3 and 17, August 7 and 21 at Potts Field, in Boulder. All ages and abilities are welcome. See BRR website here for details.

* Want to race track? The only online directory of all-comers track meets (and much other cool info) is trackinf.org.