Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!

I recently posted about doing 400s with Henry, and we hit the track again this week for some quick 200s. We are doing a 1-mile race tomorrow!

Here's Henry in the distance finishing up his 2nd 200:

A few intervals later.

10x200... nothing fancy or too hard.

Turkeys on my cooldown jog home.

Henry did 8 and I did 10 (all with about 0:45 rest, so pretty snappy). Mine we all 0:34.x or 0:35.x with the last one being 0:33.5. Henry started around 0:38, but got some down around 0:35 like me! They weren't meant to be KILLER, but just some fast sprints for our legs to remind them how to run fast for the 1 mile tomorrow.

Speaking of the 1 mile... I'm pretty sure I'm looking down the barrel of a PW ("personal worst"). I set my personal worst at the 1 mile distance last year at this race (5:04), and between a glute injury in January and a calf injury in April, I'm NOT feeling ANYWHERE near my best. My training has been decent (meaning I've been getting in my workouts), but they haven't been fast since December. I've noticed that as I age, I REALLY need to have SOLID AND CONSISTENT training to get fast (like I did all of 2024 where I set a few lifetime PRs as a 43 year old). I've been getting in the workouts, but I'm only slowly getting my speed back. That "build up" is taking longer and longer as I get older. But I'm actually OK with all of that. I know I won't be "as fast as I'd LIKE to be" forever, and I may have started my "old age slowdown." That's 100% OK. I'm not "in it to win it" all the time, but just to enjoy my fitness. We'll see if I can hold off a PW tomorrow, but I'm 80% sure that I'll be the slowest I've ever been at a mile. And that's OK.

I don't know what to expect for the race, but I'm thinking my first half will be about the same as last year's (where my 1/4 mile Garmin splits were 1:12, 1:17, 1:16, 1:14, and an extra 0:02 to the finish line). I think ideally, I'd run 1:13-1:14, then see if I can keep split #2 at 1:17 or under, and then just suffer for the rest. The final 2 splits will really be the race. We'll see what it holds.

Henry is pretty sure he'll beat last year's time of 6:01, but not set a PR (from track season of 5:32). And same with Charlie: he ran a 7:32 last year and hopes to break that, but he won't crack his track PR of 6:52 (set in May in a "city league" track meet).

I hope to be back with a race report shortly!