It's finally spring and we are out of another long winter. The track season is almost here and I have a pretty full schedule lined up. Here's the list of races for this spring, some of which are already run:
3/15/15 - Encinitas Mile (Encinitas, CA)
3/21/15 - Adrenaline 5k (Haddonfield, NJ)
3/23/15 - Widener 1500m (Danny Curran)
4/3/15 - Princeton 10k (Sam Howell)
4/11/15 - Bucknell?? Maybe, depending on how I come off the 10k.
4/17/15 - Princeton 5k (Larry Ellis)
4/23/15 - Penn Relays??? Probably not.
5/1/15 - Princeton Open, not sure what distance.
5/11/15 - Swarthmore 1500 (last chance)
6/6/15 - Moorestown 8k (for money/USATF road points, should be an easy win)
A pretty varied racing schedule - pretty evenly spread across the three distances I care about outdoors. The 10k makes me nervous but I know I'm due for a big PR in that race, sub 30 should be quite doable.
The first two races have already been run as of this posting. The mile was a road race that was somewhat on a whim, done while visiting friends in CA. I got 4th, just out of the money, running 4:19 on an out-and-back course. The winner ran 4:14 and was a 3:59 guy at Minnesota, so I know I'm good for quite a bit faster on the track. The 5k was also a road race that went pretty well - I ran 18 seconds faster than I did last year on a slightly slower day (the course was a bit slushy) and I got flat out beat in the last mile. Quite a good race though - if I can run 18 seconds faster than last year on the track, I'll run 14:03. I don't expect that to happen but that does highlight the fact that I'm set up well for the upcoming races.
I never like trying to train for 1500-10k simultaneously. It's basically impossible to dedicate time correctly to such a wide range of training, but I've been gearing more towards 5k/10k in the hopes that the strength work will pay off for the 1500. I know from experience it's much easier to train long and race short than the other way around.
As far as expectations go for the coming races: I fully expect to smash my 10k pr (track pr is 30:50, XC is 30:46). I think I can get close to the 1500 and 5k marks as well - how close depends solely on how the races play out. I have run well at Princeton before and hope to be able to run well there again, but I do need to find another 5k to race in case that doesn't go well for whatever reason. The 1500 I am not so worried about because Swarthmore is always a lock for fast times.
