June 24, Wednesday

On a delightfully crisp evening at the cinder track I chose a quick workout as my final preparation for Saturday’s one mile race.  The goal was to run a few repeats a goal raceP pace which is  under 7:00. (1:45 per 400m).  A secondary goal for the day was to monitor how long and how intense my warm-up needed to be before I felt comfortably, wide open.  After a mile in motion including  several accelerations, I felt  ready.  The first 400m timed at 1:52, a little too slow and somewhat labored. The next two were quicker (below 1:45) and more comfortable.  I ended the workout with two times 200m out of an abundance of caution.  By that time I did feel completely wide open and ran easily at a pace well under 1:40. So, what did I learn?  It takes an extensive amount of work to get the old body completely warmed up. The question is, “Do I dare doing that much work before going to the starting line for a race?” I don’t know.  Maybe, because it frightens me, I should do it on Saturday.