Update since the Race

I haven't put a recap of the race or anything up yet because as soon as I got home from the race I got pretty sick and didn't really do too much of anything. So here it goes now...

I'm content with the race, not particularly happy nor disappointed. I wanted to go out and churn out 68's and hoped to run around 14:10 or so. I went into the race blind in almost every way, other than the literal meaning, I still had my eyesight. The University of Washington often doesn't put seed times on their heat sheets because they want to avoid people whining about which heat they get accepted into and trying to switch. So I had no idea how fast the guys in my heat were. Turns out I had the fastest seed, which would have been nice to know just to have the mental victory over everyone leading into it. I also had no idea what type of shape I was in. Since I had a little hiccup in training leading into the race I had missed a few workouts. I had really only done one 1500m workout and about half of a 5000m workout before the race.

Holding onto 68's and running 14:10 didn't happen. Instead we went out and I got spit into the lead, but really didn't want to front run a 5k and kind of put the breaks on. Finally someone took the lead, but we still only went out in about 70 or 71. Soon we settled into 69's, which felt really comfortable. After about 1500m I guess they decided they didn't want to run 69's anymore and I decided I wasn't going to keep messing around and just stayed at 69. I was then on my own for roughly the next 3k hitting 69/70 easily and comfortably. With about 2 laps (approx. 600m at the Dempsey) the rest of the pack caught up. As soon as they did I just tagged on to them without much effort. With just over a lap to go (300m) a guy from BYU made a fairly solid move. I didn't think he had it in him to hold it and figured he'd come back... He didn't. I was able pass every one again, except the BYU kid and felt strong in my last lap. Just at the line someone out-leaned me and I ended up 3rd in 14:26.

I learned a few good things from the race and came to a few realisations. Firstly, I need to not worry about the seeds times and start going into races assuming I have the fastest seed. Secondly, never assume the guy is going to come back. Third, not that I ever really doubt my training, but I just have to trust my training and know that my coach wouldn't let me go into a race if I wasn't ready to run well. I also realised that in the early season I often times don't have the "fight" in the last bit of races that I need.

All in all it was a positive experience and I'm really glad I did it. Minus the fact I became ill afterwards. I took last week pretty well entirely off only running 3 or 4 times. I am now all better and getting back into the swing of things. I was having a few issues and say both our massage therapist Garfield Crooks on Friday and Wynn yesterday for treatment. Turns out I had a lot of weird things going on. Garfield told me he had never felt anyone have a gluteus medius as tight as mine was. He couldn't break the muscle apart with his hands or elbow, so instead he had me lay on the ground and was getting the heel of his foot into it. Then yesterday Wynn found a plethora of problems in my middle body ranging from my hips to my intestines, glutes, everything. After the race I could feel my right glute was really tight and my leg would go pins and needles randomly through the day and if I tried to run. After treatment with Wynn yesterday I feel way better. He figures that my intestines were all fouled up and they were pulling on my hip and taking me out of alignment. I've since started to putting the myofascial release ball in my stomach for 30+mins at a time and got onto some anti-inflammatories and a pro-biotic to try and sort things out.

Thanks for reading, remember to subscribe to my blog to be alerted on updates, follow me on twitter, check out my new donations page, share my blog on twitter and facebook and leave any questions or comments. I'd really like to get more involved with the people who visit and read my blog.

15,000

Ooooh dang, my webpage has hit 15,000 views! That's huge and exciting. Just wanted to say a quick thank-you to everyone who follows me and my supporters.

I'm really looking forward to tonight and getting after it in this 5000m. This nice little surprise will definitely help.

Flotrack Husky Classic

The time has come, my 2012 debut.

I am currently rushing to type out this post as I'm heading to the airport for flight #1 of 2012 to Seattle for race #1 of 2012.

There will be live coverage on Flotrack, which you can find HERE. And the schedule is HERE. Unfortunately my race won't be live. Hopefully they'll have it up shortly afterwards. The 5k's start at 7:30PST, I'm in heat 2, so I'll probably be going around 7:50 or so.

Thanks for reading, remember to subscribe to my blog to be alerted on updates, follow me on twitter, check out my new donations page, share my blog on twitter and facebook and leave any questions or comments. I'd really like to get more involved with the people who visit and read my blog.

My Four Cents.

After my last post, I started talking with some of my training partners and friends about some of the things I said, as well as some things other athletes have blogged about. Naturally, tons of ideas started flowing. I'm just going to talk about a couple of the ideas we got most in depth about. I'm pretty much going to focus on two things; One, I'm going to throw out a few more ideas of how Track could possibly be better marketed/televised. And two, an entirely new way to structure Track and Field to possibly make it something people want to follow and more spectator friendly.

As I said in my previous blog, the marketing of Track could be way better. Some of the things that came up in talking with people were simple things to add that just made watching Track a little more exciting and give more things to the spectators to pay attention to and follow. It would be really cool to get the athletes "mic'ed up" so to speak. Again, it's as simple as looking at sports that are already BIG in the world and taking some things from them. I think throwing some microphones on athletes, like they sometimes do in Hockey or American Football, to actually hear the race would really add a new aspect to viewing track that has never been done before. While we're at it, why not take some notes from Soccer and throw a heart rate monitor on them, or put a chip in their spikes that counts how many steps their taking? Adding these things would add such a neat element.

Little things like that would add huge elements to T.V. viewing. I love to watch Track on T.V. however, to someone who doesn't really know much about the sport, I can see how it would be quite boring. For one, the commentators often don't really know what they are talking about. Giving these stats to the commentators they could easy look at the information and analys the race a little more, without necessarily knowing more about the sport. With the chips in the shoes you could easily give stats like how fast Bolt got from 0-20mph, exactly how many steps he took to cover 100m. With the chips, and probably with the heart rate monitors as well, you could look at each 50m/100m/200m/1000m interval of a 1500m or 5000m race and see the exact spot where the pace slowed down and picked back up, or where the final move was made. Plus, it would give the weekend warrior a chance to compare their information from their beloved Garmin to the stats from the elite athletes.

Truthfully, I don't know much about Soccer. Having a British roommate, I have started to learn a little more. Even with the limited knowledge I do have, watching Soccer is really entertaining because they have all these little gadgets. Hell, even NASCAR hooks the drivers up and gives you their vital stats. It just gives people something to relate and compare to between each athlete and race. Another example of this is the Tour de France, they have those guys linked up to everything!

Speaking of giving spectators something to relate to and compare between athletes and races, Track really isn't making that easy at the moment. Even if a Diamond League event happens to be aired on television, it's impossible to really follow anything because the next time it airs NONE of the same athletes are competing. It makes it really hard for spectators to get involved, follow their favourite athlete, or compare them head to head.

A way we thought to fix this, again kind of stolen from Soccer, is implementing some sort of a league system. The way we imagined it working is splitting athletes up into divisions; div.1, div.2, div.3, and so on. Div.1 would be the best of the best, div.2 and lower would be the up and comers. One of the con's of this system would be that whichever division an athlete is designated to, is the only the division the athlete could race in. To make sure an athlete isn't stuck in a division they are too good for, there would be some sort if point system. In each league race you'd earn certain amount of points for placing and maybe a couple times a year there is an evaluation and the top 3 or 5 athletes in each division get to move up and the bottom 3 or 5 get moved down. That way there are always the incentive to move up into higher divisions and an even bigger one to stay in the top.

Now, I'll admit, there would be some pro's and con's. The biggest being the previously stated fact that athletes are somewhat stuck in a division until an evaluation comes along. However, drastic changes will have to be made if we want our sport the thrive. Even though it might be a slight con for athletes, I think it would be a HUGE pro for spectators. Doing something like this format would really give people something to pay attention to and follow. They'll be able to check in after each race to see the point totals, get excited if their favourite athlete is getting close to being moved up, get nervous if that athlete might get moved down.

There are also some pro's for athletes. It would open up a whole new set of records, like "div.2 record." It would set up some new championship races where athletes can add "Div.2 champion" to their running resume. It would also give the opportunity to have things like dual meets, where the top athletes from Div.2 in North America go up against the top from Europe. Again, some more exciting races for the athletes, as well as giving spectators more races to follow. Everyone likes to see USA beat Canada, or England beat France.

It would also put a whole new spin on the sponsorship side of things. I think in a format such as this it would really make it easy for sponsors to really see who the up and comers are, see who is able to perform under pressure and that sort of thing. Right now it just seems agents approach sponsors with an athlete who has maybe had one really great race or season, saying they have the next best runner and the company, for the most part, just has to believe it and hope for the best. In the league system there would be a lot more racing and sponsors would be able to more easily see who performs consistently.

One last thing that was talked about was making the track more like a horse track. If people were able to put money down on the athletes, I can guarantee they'd want to follow the sport more. Being able to bet on a particular person to win the race, putting money down on the time they'll run, betting on the top three. Really when you think of it, there are endless things people could bet on. Realistically, horse racing isn't all that exciting, but people keep going weekend after weekend to place money on them. Not only would it bring spectators, but a great opportunity for revenue as well.

Getting out there and clocking countless miles with my training partners and having the great chats that come along with it, is one of my most favourite things to do. I will be sure to share any further ideas that come up in our miles.

Thanks for reading, remember to subscribe to my blog to be alerted on updates, follow me on twitter, check out my new donations page, share my blog on twitter and facebook and leave any questions or comments. I'd really like to get more involved with the people who visit and read my blog.