Sunday was the Greater Boston Track Club Invitational [results] at Harvard. I wasn't even going to do a post-race writeup for this stinkfest, but I have been receiving some pressure to at least come up with a publicly facing excuse as to why I ran like crap, so I will offer this explanation... This was my first mile since the Clinton administration (the first, and hopefully only one :) )... I had absolutely no clue how to run this thing. I couldn't even picture it leading up to the race (I usually like to at least try to visualize the race ahead of time and get all nervous and puke). I decided that since I have only been running base mileage with the occasional tempo run, and I hadn't run a quarter at my desired 'mile' pace since the 90s, that I would just sit back, not go crazy, and let some others dictate pace for a bit. Of course, I was put in a slow heat based on the conservative seed time I submitted, so I was already screwed before I even started to race. I was the 12th seed (last) in the 2nd heat, so I was put up on the shotgun on the outside. As soon as the gun went off, I knew the pace was going to be slow because I was holding back and was still way out in front. At the cut-in, I settled in in 2nd place behind a guy from Essex. I then rode 2nd for the first 800. A guy from GBTC made a move and I went with him. I maintained 2nd and felt real good, very relaxed and in control cardio-wise) but to my absolute horror, we went through in 2:20 (thats what I get for not being aggressive and running my pace from the beginning). I knew right away, I was 8 seconds back of what I wanted to run already at the half, and there was going to be no salvaging a good time at that point. I took the lead at 800 to go and ran a 2:13 last 800 split to win the heat in a mediocre high school time of 4:33. I was and still am horrified, and now I need to find another Mile to run somewhere this winter. I think it will be the Valentine Invitational at BU on Feb. 9th. Next up though, will be another run at a 5k at the Terrier Classic this Saturday.

Photos came out better this time around after applying some advice given to me on taking indoor action shots...I actually had to use some of these things called 'settings' on my camera....they actually DO do something (if you can believe that)....

Photos:

Men's Open Mile:

• Heat 1 (Kevin Alliette, Matt Ely)
• Heat 2 (my heat, Terry McNatt, Junyong Pak)
• Heat 3 (Pat Ard, Chris Kealey)

Men's Invite Mile (Mark Miller, Joey Dewitt, Sintayehu Taye, Jeff Caron, Erik Nedeau, Rex Radloff, Andie Colon, etc.)

Other MVS competitors (Julie Hanover in Women's Open Mile, Janus Maku in Men's Masters Mile, Ann Kingsland in Women's 200, Becky Connolly in Masters 200, Bruce Rose in the Men's Open Mile).