Sunday, March 8, 2008 (4xmile)

Went to Ben Brown.
Take a look at the times from the SCIAC guys in the 5000:

10 Brian Kopczynski        Claremont-Mu          15:13.01
13 Florian Scheulen        Claremont-Mu          15:13.74
14 Kris Brown              Claremont-Mu          15:15.64
22 Chris Smith             Redlands              15:26.78
8 Brad Johnson             Claremont-Mu          15:30.89
11 Georgi Dinolov          Claremont-Mu          15:35.83
12 Jeremy Kalmus           Redlands              15:36.50
15 Adam Coleman            Claremont-Mu          15:40.58
20 Matt Cummins            Claremont-Mu          15:44.55
5 Kramer Straube           Claremont-Mu          15:56.42
14 Alec Fillmore           Redlands              16:17.09
15 Charles Enscoe          Pomona Pitzer         16:18.85
17 Matt Kurtis             Claremont-Mu          16:23.33
22 Nolan Zandi             Pomona Pitzer         16:43.30
31 Jeff West               Redlands              17:10.03
33 Keenan Ferar            Pomona Pitzer         17:47.35
34 Ross Brennan            Pomona Pitzer         17:51.77

Incredible depth considering Oxy and Pomona, and possibly LaVerne, Cal Lu, Whittier and Caltech all could contribute further sub-16:00 performances.
Some of those individual performances are surprising, but none are absolutely shocking. However, taken collectively, they're way outside what I would expect. You just can't have everybody have a career day all at once. So either it's a massive statistical anomaly, or the 5000 just got really tough in SCIAC, or something strange was in the air at Mt. SAC.

Also, Pete Magill ran 14:34, which is just ridiculous. And just as we were leaving we watched Torri Edwards just barely hold off the competition in a 400, running a 57. It was almost surreal to see her coming around the first turn. She simply dwarfed the other runners. It was like that kid in 5th grade gym class who's actually 13 years old but just failed a bunch of times.

Matt ran 1:57.33, with a tough last 50 meters. It's a good mark for this point in the season, when he's done almost no 800-specific stuff. Katherine won her heat of the 1500, but seemed rather nonchalant about the whole thing.

I toured Mt. Sac with Ian for a while, taking some detours up large, granular hills, and getting intimidated by a cow. Then I cooled down for a while with Matt. Later that day I did my workout at Caltech. I was originally planning 5xmile, but my legs had been hurting a bit earlier in the day, and with six days until the distance carnival I didn't want to push things. So I did 4xmile with a lap jog recovery in about 2:40.
I hit:
5:00
4:58
4:56
4:49
But I felt off. I could do it just fine, but my internal clock was messed up. Every time I came around, I'd always try to guess what that lap had been based on how it felt. For example, "I got a little more turnover on that one, so it was probably a 73." But I was consistently giving myself credit for two seconds that my watch didn't agree on. I wanted to feel better than I did on this workout, but there's nothing to be done about it now. All that remains is to rest up and at the end of the week see what I can do.

I warmed down with Will for a bit afterwards, since he happened to have come by on a jog. By the end my calves were feeling very tight and sore, probably a compound effect from sprinting yesterday, then hills and a workout in flats today.