So Cal Striders Masters meet. 5/8/04 @ Long Beach State.
I trained two whole months with TRH at Orange Coast College. Coach Steve was a great help. We practiced running 64 second 400M repeats (4:16/mile pace) and 30 to 32 second 200M repeats.
On race day I signed up for the 800M and the lady told me that I was the only one in the race! Turns out, I was the only under-40 runner. They put me in the elite master race, which was the fourth 800m of the day.
In my race were two of the fastest 800m runners (masters) in California. One, naturally, is Angel Roman who is currently ranked in the top 10 in the nation and some other guy from up north who was #1 in the nation in high school! Then there was the waterboy.E
I told myself, "not to race the others, race your watch and run the splits." The gun went off and I followed the six fastest 40-year olds around! At the 200m mark, I hit it at 31 seconds, 63 @ the 400m, 1:36.8 @ the 600m! Running 600m at that speed started to take its toll. I started to falter at the 650m mark. My coach yelled to relax and I did. It was amazing! I picked up the pace and started to close on the pack. I came across at 2:10.7! (4:20/mile) My personal best by 7 seconds!
That's it for me for the fast stuff. I wanted to tie my 400m High School record last year with 56 seconds and accomplished that. This year was the 800m in 2:10, Done! What now? The mile. Goal: 4:50! Then a 5K in 17:55.
For now, Im pretty happy with my resultsEand my teammates have promoted me to GATORADE Boy!