After a successful indoor season, it was time to get ready for outdoor track. Keep in mind while reading this that, throughout my time at OU, I had three goals with my running. The first was to train as a group with all of the guys on the team who were/are better than me and get better by osmosis, and keep the daily toil interesting by having people to share it with. The second reason was to go to all of the good meets that the distance team went to in XC and last year's track team, such as both Stanford meets, Mt. SAC and the UW indoor meets. The third reason was to be coached by Martin Smith, a coach who has had many All-Americans and excellent distance runners throughout his career, and learn his secret to training and success.
I ran three races this outdoor season, and none of them went well. Throughout indoor and outdoor, I never felt like I was training hard and progressing from last year, but because I ran well indoors I thought that maybe going hard in training was overrated and that I was actually going to improve from last year. I also was gradually phased out from doing the grass track/Coach Smith workouts to Jeremy's "rhythm" track workouts, which mainly consisted of easy 500s. Again, I was doing some of this during indoors, but because I ran well I tried not to question it. There was always doubt that the training was going to yield good results. By the time outdoor was in full swing, I was doing most of my workouts either solo or with guys that weren't the A team, who usually did longer endurance-based work that I have used to great effect in the past.
The first race at Arkansas, I ran a 3:53 1500. OK, not a great result, but I hadn't backed off in training and I was probably just tired. The race went out in 2:08 and closed hard so I wasn't too upset with it since it wasn't a great race anyway. The next race was the opposite: I felt really good going into it, and went out hard but ended up fading off of a 2:01 first half to another 3:53 clocking. This was pretty discouraging, but OK, maybe I just can't handle that fast of a pace. The week after this race Kyle and I were scheduled to go to Princeton for the Larry Ellis 5k, and I was super excited for this race and certain that I would run well. At the last minute, Coach pulled us because of anticipated bad weather. This was, in hindsight, the beginning of the end for my motivation and this event, coupled with my lack of enthusiasm with my training and not going to good meets, sowed the seeds for just wanting to leave OU and start training on my own terms. Keep in mind the three goals that I had at the beginning of this post, and you can understand my frustration with getting pulled from the only scheduled fast 5k.
The last race was definitely the fitting end to a disappointing season. I ran a 14:43 5k at the big 12 meet and placed something like 14th. I went in hoping and assuming to sneak in for a scoring spot in the top 8, but once the race went off I just never felt fit. Running 70s was race effort, and was very disheartening. This race was one of the very few track races in which I seriously thought about dropping out. It was also probably the worst race of my collegiate, and maybe entire, career.
In hindsight I believe that I was just never in shape all of track season. I never felt like I was training hard and never felt fit, and it showed in each race. I believe I ran well indoors off of my cross country base and the hard training I got in in Delaware between Thanksgiving and New Years. I have thought about this for some time, and I conclude that the reason that Coach Smith is successful with so many guys is that, first of all, he is a master recruiter and brings in the best talent, and gets guys fit but keeps the training conservative to minimize injury. In this way, he gets guys in good shape and lets their talent do the rest. For guys like Kyle and I, who worked very hard undergrad to maximize our talent, coming to OU actually made both of us worse because we were undertrained. That brings me to point number 2: transfers like Kyle and I don't work with Smith because so much of his system is faith based. Kids coming out of high school to train under him don't know any other collegiate training system, and so they have complete trust in his training. Trust and belief is a big component of success with any training, and because we had been exposed to other training that we had had success from, we never put complete faith in Smith's approach. Quite apart from that, I just wasn't trained by Smith. I was trained by a 23 year old wet-behind-the-ears assistant who knew less about training than I did, and I was his guinea pig. That is what most annoyed me about my spring season; I was considered to be a less important member and my results suffered.
Even though I gripe about it now, I am glad I went to OU for my last year. If I hadn't gone, I would have always wondered what could have been. I also had a good XC experience and came away with PRs indoors. I met some great guys and had some fun and learned some about running. But now I'm back for good, and I'm looking forward to training myself and exploring the new frontier of road races and seeing if I can contend for any prize money. It promises to be an interesting new "career" ahead, juggling a real job with training, but I am excited to see if I can hack it.
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