Jonathan's Time Trial

I woke up with morning, trying to sleep in, at 7am, coughing uncontrollably. KC suggested I go to the doctor, so I did. Sinus infection, again. I can't stop getting then. He gave me some antibiotics and I was on my way.

I went to the track a little early to relax before starting to warm-up. Bob, Scott, Jonathan, Bob's wife, and his dog all arrived and we went to warmup on the shell trail. Boring. I was hoping to warm up a little longer than we did (1.98mi/14:48min), but it wasn't about me. I asked Bob about the pace, thinking that I needed to run 82's to hit 11:00 for 3200, but he said 87's. I didn't question it. It was warm and windy on the track, so I went shirtless with T4s. I'd thought about spikes, but I didn't want to destroy my calves for the week. Jonathan and I didn't really talk much beforehand, because I didn't want to interfere with whatever Bob and his dad had told him. I just assumed he was going to trust me to do my job. Little did he know...

I told him 100 meters in that the first lap was going to be fast but that we'd be fine after that, and to just stay behind me on the back stretch to stay out of the wind. I wore my watch to look at ever 200 meters, and I took a split at the 400 but I didn't pay attention to total time; just the quarters as individual entities. The first was an 83. Faster than it was supposed to be, but also faster than I expected given that we'd be fast out of the gate. I told him not to worry, and reminded him to stay still in lane 1 and let me do the moving around. Bob wanted me to more run next to him for the first mile than in front of him, so on the home stretches I tried to back off and let him pull up next to me on the inside. That may have been the problem. We ran 87 for the 2nd quarter, but then 89 and 88 for the next ones. Bob and Scott seemed pleased though. I didn't know that we ran a 5:48 mile, because if I did I would have been freaking out for the kid. Probably better that he didn't know either.

Bob told me to do one more lap like that and then to start dropping it. So lap #5 was an 86. I still wanted to make up for the 88 and 89 and get us back into 87 territory. He told me to start moving after that, so we did. #6 was an 84 and I told Jonathan that we were perfect. I reminded him to stay on me and told him exactly what was going to happen on the next two laps. At 700m to go, I told him that I was going to go with 300 to go in the wind and that he needed to follow me. I said the same thing at 500 about 100 to go. Our penultimate lap was an 82. We were doing exactly what we should do. With 300 to go I tried to accelerate a little bit, but his shadow didn't follow so I backed off. I was yelling at him and he started to make up the distance. The guys later confirmed that he closed the gap very well on the last curve. With 100 to go I moved out to lane 2 and kept yelling at him to go and kick. He crossed the finish line right behind me after an 81 lap. I didn't even look at the watch. I knew that our last 4 laps had been considerably faster than the first 4, and I assumed that we were following the right plan. I was shocked when I looked down and saw 11:22. I figured for sure we'd be 10:50's. Crazy. 87s were wrong.

Everyone was positive afterwards, and Bob was apologetic about the incorrect splits, but still told Jonathan that he'd done a good job. I was getting bored, so I asked Scott if he wanted to run a hard 800. He said he couldn't, so I decided on a 400 instead. The goal was sub-60. Jonathan went down to the 100 and Scott the 150 to wait for me. Bob said go and I was off. I said that if I got to 200 in like 34, I would stop. Good LORD it was windy. Much more windy running a 26-27 200 than a 40-44 200 in the time trial. I used up all of my energy on the backstretch. Scott and Jonathan were basically jogging in front of me as I struggled home with Bob yelling splits down the homestretch. I finished in 58. I gasped for air. It was the first time I've been under 60 in a long time. I remember trying one spring my first year teaching, on the morning of Anne's college graduation, and a few other times between. But I did it today.

We cooled down, and I dragged my feet through the whole thing, exhausted. Bob's dog tried to kill him a few times. It was a good day.