I ran my first race of the year yesterday and it went pretty well. I won the 800 at the UofH indoor all-comers meet in 1:54. The race ended up a little different than I expected, but it was a good effort and a good “rust-buster” to get used to racing again.

Since they split the college and unnattached athletes into different heats, I wasn’t expecting much competition, so I figured it would go out fairly slow and then I’d just take over. Well, that didn’t exactly happen. When the gun went off, all of these guys jumped off the line and took off. For the first 50m or so I was kind of in shock because all of these guys were ahead of me. At 150m I came back to reality and realized I was in about 7th place. I had to make a quick decision on how to get to the front at this point. I had two choices, go to the outside and try and pass everyone or go to the inside and try and work my way up. Since, the turns on a flat indoor 200m track are rough, I decided to take the risk and try and make the inside pass. My quick plan was to make a move up the inside once we got into the home straight. I was hoping that the momentum would take the guys in front of me into the outside of lane one, opening up a lane where I could scoot by. I ended up being right, so I threw in a surge and passed a couple guys on the straight.

Well, my plan worked great until we got into the turn. I made it up to 3rd or so at that point and then I ran into a wall. I was moving up the inside, then the guy in front of me at about 240m, slammed on the breaks and I basically ran into the back of him. I slammed on the breaks too, losing all my momentum, made a football like stutter step to the outside and tried to get back up to speed. I finally got into the lead after I had to go wide and pass another guy at 320m. I came across 400m in 56 or so and then I was on my own to the finish.

I felt pretty solid the whole way, got a little complacent towards the end and should have switched into another gear. I ended up winning by 4 seconds and then there was another 5 seconds until the third place guy. So, it was a smart thing for all those guys ahead of me to go out in 26…. Pretty funny how at 150m your in 7th and 200m later your in 1st…

Anyways, I recovered really well, which is a plus. Didn’t really feal worn out or anything. Overall, I’m happy with the effort 1:54 on a flat 200m track with no competition for my first race is a solid start. Especially the way I ran it. Losing momentum killed me and is a definate no-no in indoor 800m racing. I ran the race too “jerky” or fartlek style which made it harder than it should have been.

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