As we age, our fast-twitch muscles are the first to go–versus our slow-twitch muscles. So trying to recruit them back at 41 years old takes a lot of work. I’ve been on the track this spring and summer, working on my speed in preparation for the Raspberry Run 1 Mile. This race hasn’t solely been the focus of my training, but my coach has had me doing workouts in preparation for it.
Going into this race, I really just wanted a PR. When you view the results of the Raspberry Run 1 Mile from last year, the results website says I ran 5:30, but that was based on gun time and not chip time as there was no timing mat at the start of the race. I did time myself at last year’s race and had myself at 5:25, so I used that as my unofficial PR time. So this year, my goal was to beat the 5:25 time. My coach thought I could run 5:15 – 5:20, which definitely scared me a bit, but I also know she won’t tell me this if she didn’t think I could do it.
This year at the race, they did have a timing mat at the start, so we did get a chip time and gun time this year, which was nice. I was in the second wave of the race as the first wave was all of the USATF teams competing against each other. I was worried that there wouldn’t be many fast people in wave two, but there were enough fast guys to run with–and some kids who, of course, who shot off the line like a banshee and then died after 50 yards. Ha!
It was nice that the race didn’t start until noon, so I was able to sleep in and have a slow morning at home before starting my drive to Hopkins. When I got to the start, it was raining, but I waited out the rain for a bit to start my warm-up and luckily the rain held off until right after we finished.
I felt pretty good going into this race–my legs felt decent but nothing amazing. We lined up for the start, and waited another five minutes in the start area, which is always my least favorite part because then I have time to think about my nerves more. As soon as the gun went off, there was definitely some congestion, but thankfully within a few seconds, things opened up quickly.
I held off looking at my watch until I felt like I was in my groove–and honestly didn’t look at it more than a couple times throughout the race. I remember seeing a lap pace of 5:25 and being a little disappointed as that was the ‘slowest’ I wanted to be running. I tried to remind myself that I needed to keep pushing because it would be over before I knew it. (It was!) And I didn’t let the banner trick me this time. (If you read my race recap from last year, I thought the banner draped across the road was the finish but in reality it was only one kilometer into the race.)
I felt good during the race, but I just couldn’t get my legs to turn over faster than a 5:25 pace. About 150 meters from the end of the race, I saw another women up ahead, and I thought, “I’ve got to get her.” So I found one more gear and tried to pull up next to her, but as soon as she saw me, she found another gear too and held the first place spot for the second wave.
As soon as I crossed the line, I hit the stop button on my watch, looked down, and saw 5:25, but my watch had also beeped right at the line at 5:24, so I wasn’t sure what the official results would have me at. It took a while for the official results to be posted, but I did, indeed, run 5:24 for the mile.
While I was happy to get a PR, I was bummed that I didn’t run faster. And since the race didn’t go the way I had hoped, my coach and I decided to do another mile time trial to see if I could get that 5:15 – 5:20 time. We tried to find a race that weekend or set up a time trial together, but for a variety of reasons, neither worked out. Instead I did a solo time trial one morning at the track.
I know you can run a lot faster on the track than the roads, but this would give me the best chance to run fast, and I figured I could pace myself better on the track than the roads too.
The morning of the time trail was windy, warm, and humid (really humid!), but I also knew it was just a mile and only about 5 minutes of running, so I figured it would be okay. I was SO nervous for this time trial. I get nervous for workouts and race, but the nerves I had going into this time trial were even worse than usual. I don’t know why time trials scare me, but they always have!
I had to talk myself up and remind myself that this mile is not the end all, be all. And at the end of the day, ‘no one is going to care!’ I decided to break up the mile into 200s, which seemed easier to tackle. I wanted to run just under 40 seconds for each 200, which would give me a time right around 5:20 for a mile.
When you do a mile time trial on the track, you need to start 9 meters behind the finish line. This ensures the total distance for a mile of 1609 meters. While it may not seem like a big deal to just do 1600 meters (exactly 4 laps on the track), it can definitely add a few seconds to your time.
The other thing you want to avoid doing–if you are wanting to run exactly one mile on the track is to not go by the GPS on your watch. Your GPS watch is not going to be super accurate on the track, so instead you’ll want to use the lines on the track. This usually means you’ll probably run longer than a mile according to your watch, but like I said, if you are wanting the most accurate splits, you need to use the markings on the track.
When I finally stopped procrastinating on the time trial, I took a deep breath, collected my thoughts, and started. I wanted to check my watch the first 200 meters and the first 400 meters, and then I wanted to run based off effort. I missed an accurate time right at the 200 meter mark, but I think it was right around :39 – :40 seconds. At 400 meters, I checked my watch, and it read 1:19. Perfect, I thought!
I continued to try and maintain the same effort on lap number two, focusing on each 200 meters at a time. I don’t think I looked at my watch again until 1200 meters when I saw 4:00, and I knew I was going to need to book it the last lap. I did my very best to keep my foot on the accelerator and willed my legs to keep turning over. I can’t say it ever started hurting because all 1609 meters hurt. Ha!
As soon as I crossed the line, I accidentally lapped my watch (instead of stopping it), and then I finally hit the stop button. At first I saw 5:21 on my watch, but I quickly realized my watch hit a mile before I had on the track, so I added the 5:21 to the 2 seconds I ran through the line for a total time of 5:23.9.
I immediately laid on the grass and tried to slow my breathing and heart rate down. That was a lot of work for one second–and barely a second if you are factoring in the tenths of a second.
So that is how I got an unofficial mile PR of 5:23 and a 5:24 officially. I won’t post the 5:23 as my PR since it was just in a time trial. Instead it was really just a chance to see if I could show my fitness is just a little bit better than the Raspberry Run 1 Mile showed. I’m still bummed I wasn’t able to run faster, but as my coach reminded me, I did essentially ran two seconds faster than a year ago, and at 41 years old, I will take every second I can get.
