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happy christmas and new years – i went home, saw m…

happy christmas and new years – i went home, saw my family, ate smores on the beach, ran in a track meet. and despite the very nice times i spent with my friends and family i’m going to start with a brief rundown of how training’s been going. because it’s gotten pretty crazy.

having given up, with rare exceptions, interval work since last march, i generally figure my leg speed has gone way downhill. i’d pretty much resigned myself to accepting the idea that my college track PBs of a 4:39 mile and 9:00 3000 meters were lifetime bests, and, i further decided, not altogether too shabby for a long-course triathlete, anyhow. but the past couple of weeks i’ve been getting a sort of strange feeling in my legs during shorter runs, and there was a low-key track meet while i was in boston, so i decided i’d go and have at it.

i ran my first track workout since august (and my second since march) at 7pm on christmas day, with my mom holding a stopwatch and a flashlight next to a dark and freezing cold lexington high school track. and it went well (400-800-1200-800-400 in 70, 2:21, 3:31, 2:20, 64 for those who care about this stuff) except for a stomachache no doubt brought on by far, far too many christmas day chocolates. so going to the meet i seeded myself, in a fit of optimism, at 4:40 and 9:00.

the 3000 was first, and standing on the starting line i knew there was no way i’d hit 9:00. it was either going to be well under 8:50 or well over 9:20. i have a picture taken of the starting line – i’m biting my lip, looking as though i’d like nothing more than to just get the hell off the track and let the middle distance guys have at each other. which was exactly what i wanted to do. heck, i hadn’t run in a track meet since may of 2001, and not in anything shorter than 5k since march of 2000. i hadn’t run a mile faster than 5:45 since august. i didn’t even do strides since september. so throwing caution to the wind, i lined up in the front row. and then the gun went off, and everything went a bit blurry.

i’m used to being able to pay close attention to split times, listen closely to signals from my legs and messages from the demons, but after one lap everything was in disarray. i heard a couple of splits, but was totally unable to correlate them to distances (“he said 3:31 … was that a half mile? a mile? ohmygodwe’regoingaroundagain”). i had a vague awareness that i was going much faster than i ever had before, but at the same time a detached sense that i had no control over legs that were desperately trying to reacquaint themselves with banked plywood. i didn’t hear the time when i crossed the finish line, so i went to rest up for the mile. alternated propping my legs against the wall next to this guy puking into a trash can with jogging slowly around the outer perimeter of the track while they finished heats of the 3000.

then heats of the 400, and i stretched out and did a couple of strides. then, following the noble tradition of lying about your seed time, i snuck into the fast heat of the mile (“4:36 and faster”). in the mile i got out pretty well, in third position for a while, then i faded back to seventh or eighth with 400 to go. and then – this never happens to me with 400 to go – i started picking people off. with one lap to go i was sitting in fourth, just back of third and about twenty meters behind second. the leader was out of sight. i moved up into third on the first turn and saw second, pretty far ahead. i figured i couldn’t catch him but i stayed on my toes and kicked because i was having a good time. went around the bottom turn, and i came off the banking into lane two. i passed the guy with about ten meters to go, beat him by maybe two tenths of a second. i was still well back of the leader.

we got the heck out of there before i could have any bright ideas about running in the 800, and i later learned i’d run 8:45 in the 3k and 4:30 in the mile. those are improvements of 15 and 9 seconds, respectively, over my previous lifetime bests. and without the slightest hint of a taper – i’d run twenty six days before and eighteen four days before. so i was pretty shocked. i cooled down three or four miles, and then went for a bike ride. i wound up taking december 31 off – my only day off in december – because of travel constraints, but otherwise i’m clipping right along. two hours with coach troy and a 4 mile bonus run saturday, 27 miles running (in – sniff – a howling, freezing wind) sunday. clearly i am sitting on lifetime best fitness right now, which is exciting and just a little bit nerve-wracking.

but enough bragging about training for now. we closed scrooge (more violin music), which was one of the funnest shows ever, before new years, and opened jack and the giant this past saturday. i’m occasionally drafted into saturday afternoon kids’ shows when not enough boys audition, more on the strength of my ability to look like a kid than on my, uh, acting prowess. i play the giant, and last saturday had the good fortune to trip on the hem of my costume during a chase scene and lay it out emphatically and face-first. should have felt lucky that the only thing i broke was character, but that failed to occur to me at the time and i cursed, loudly. fortunately no one was paying attention and i have thus far escaped reprimand. the show is excellent though, last-minute chase choreography nothwithstanding. i heartily encourage anyone with a free saturday afternoon and five dollars to come see it. it’s at jesters, 303 682 9980 for reservations. cheaper than a movie and way, way more fun.