Three-in-one route to self-destruction

With Kyle hovering so close to the 5-minute mile mark and me nowhere near it, I figured a sacrifice to the Gods of running was necessary.

So I donned my ceremonial robes (new blue Nike vest, yellow Nike Mayfly shoes that weigh less than pair of socks), successfully negotiated the opening ritual (three cups of tea, two miles steady, then dynamic warm-up followed by strides)...

... and with very much a feeling of Morituri Te Salutamus*, lined up in the inside lane in front of Kyle for the final track mile of the Boulder Road Runners series at Potts Field.

It had taken us a while to realise that in the four-lap event pacing is crucial. Go out too slow and you can't kick hard enough or long enough in the final lap to make up the lost ground; go out too fast and you have nothing left. Kyle had figured out that he was going out a second or two too slowly in the first 400... which had led him to a string of frustrating 5:03s. Both being aficionados of books like The Perfect Mile, we'd been talking about the months it took Landy, Bannister and co to finally, finally get under 4 minutes, despite them being so close for so long.

So we hatched a cunning plan for me to do the first lap in a guaranteed 73 seconds to give him some sort of reference point. "If you're still behind me at 400 be ready to come by", I warned him, "because at about 410 metres my wheels are going to come off."

And so it was. I shot off trailing the race leader, trampling small children and eliciting gasps from the crowd (well, Patty, who didn't know what I was up to). Not so much a rabbit, more like a demented hamster escaped from his treadmill and expecting the recapturing hand on the scruff of the neck at any second.

Checking the pace every 100 metres, I delivered the lap and lay back into a red bath of lactate. Kyle stormed on. A three-foot high 9-year-old stormed past me. Kyle's 25-year-old daughter Lori sped by. A 15-year-old girl left me for dead...on and on they went, until eventually somewhere around the beginning of the third lap I pulled myself together and started "running" again.

With one eye on Kyle and the other on my watch I nearly diverted through the steeplechase water jump on my final lap. Kyle just missed 5:00: a self-timed 5:01; an official 5:02. I staggered in much much later. Oh OK: 5:45 (again). That much later.

"The boy done great", as British football managers say. For some reason the smattering of high school/x-country elites we usually get hadn't turned up, and the poor old boy was stuck on the front on his own. It was a lonely, hard push to the finish. I'm sure with even just the suggestion of some competition, he would have grabbed his sub-5.
So... onwards to the Pearl Street Mile.

In a continuing effort to rescue something -- anything -- from the season, I followed up the mile with an inglorious 800m -- my first ever. I'm not publishing the time, it is shameful. And then for punishment "ran" the 5k in an equally leaden-legged style. As I lined up for the start of the 5k my onboard conversation was running along the lines of "This is a really bad idea..." However, Dave Albo, fresh from a super run in the masters nationals and a SERIOUSLY awesome 400m for training this very night in...get this... 58 seconds!!! -- had a calming word. Looking round at the evening light, and the backdrop of the Foothills, he said "Just enjoy the beautiful evening". It was just what I needed to hear; and I even remembered to look up during the race and take in that view.

* "We who are about to die salute you". Traditional pre-fight salute of the gladiators.