Friday, May 25, 2012

One Mile Time Trial: Act Three

My wholly original One Mile Time Trial series is back for a pre-Memorial Day edition!  Don't take off for your long weekend until you read this post!

Before we get to the results, I want to point out what a fool I am (and not for the obvious reasons.)  The track has two drinking fountains near it.  I've run at this location for 10 years now and, every winter, they remove the piping under the fountain so it won't freeze and restore it around Spring Break for the outside sports teams to use again.  Except, this year, I did not see the piping return and I was brought to great sadness.  I would have no water for my harsh summer intervals unless I supplied it myself and I'm no J.D. Waterpockets.

But then I saw someone drinking from the inoperable fountain the other day.  Were they staging an elaborate joke on yours truly? No,no, they actually seemed to give off the satisfied glow of recent hydration.  And the chin was unmistakably glistening.  So I warily wandered over on guard for hidden cameras and someone shouting, "You got Punk'd!"  I depressed the button and a magical stream of looping water appeared before my very eyes.  It was a Memorial Day Miracle!

Apparently, they replaced the piping with internal flex lines this year.

As always, the "one mile" is really 1600 meters as in four laps at my local high school track - 30 feet short of an actual mile.  As explained before (i.e. horseshoes/hand grenades), close enough.  Don't argue.

Act one:  5:39
Act two:  5:38

The lungs and legs are starting to respond.  Instead of ridiculous Look-At-The-Fat-Guy-Run huffin' and puffin' I've been doing this Spring, I managed to maintain pretty good composure and form while making my orbits.  Laps of 1:22, 1:25, 1:25, 1:22 bringing an Act Three time of:

5:34

Still trending in the right direction!

But still a long ways to go to 5:20.

Happy trails.

5 comments:

Ironman By Thirty said...

I bet if you took off your shoes, you would shed a bit of weight and might be able to shave off those extra seconds.

Danielle in Iowa in Ireland said...

Well, at this rate you'll meet your goal in September. I think maybe someone needs to release some wild bears onto the track to give you a bit more "motivation."

Nate Leckband said...

Keep it up man. I know you're not training for the mile specifically, but if you really want to drop that time, substitute 400s or even 300s or 200s for one of your 800 days. Run 400s at around you mile pace and 200s around your 800 pace. I really like those short, quick intervals.

(One of my New Year's resolutions was to give more unsolicited advice).

Deb said...

Way to go! I'd LOVE to be that speedy.

...Not "love" it so much that I'd actually go to the track and work at it, mind you, but "love" it so much that I'd anonymously bitch and whine on your blog. Speed work HURTS, but this here bitching? SUCH a piece of cake. I'm barely even sweating.

Elizabeth said...

Sweet Speedy Splits. Incidentally, I had just learned the other day that the mile is slightly longer than 1600 meters. Also, I learned that the school track, where I have done track work a few times, is actually 440 yards (just a few meters more than a metric track) so that 4 times around gives you exactly 1 mile. How 'bout that!