1Mile Challenge x 2

1Mile Challenge x 2

10 PAX at F3-Swift kicked off the Spring race season a little late (only by 2 months) with a 1600m Time Trial at Community House Middle School.

The THANG:

• 0500 – Early crew of Bunker, Stump Hugger, and Bratwurst arrive for some extra warm-up around the oval.  Eventually, Honey Bee may have shown up early, so we’ll count him as FIFO instead of LIFO.  Back to cars.
• 0515 – Roll out of the bus lot towards the track with the rest of the crew.  Mosey around the track, familiarizing oneself with the oval that many of us ran around in more light last Thursday at the Black Diamond workout, albeit, it’s now dark and we have a different focus.
• After 10 minutes or so of easy running, we commence with the usual drill set of toes 20/20/20, heels 20/20/20, high knees x 25, butt kicks x 25, B-skips to 50m, and one last stride.
• Start the countdown of about 5minutes to get in one’s own zone.  Find Tuck wandering in the dark.
• BOM for the Lord’s Prayer.
• Give final instructions – easy on the first lap, “3rd 500” is the hardest, yada yada yada.
• Clock counts 3, 2, 1, GO! – run 1600m (0.994mile) AYG.  Record your time on the clock.  Fastest time was 5:09.
• Bend over, wheeze, cheer in the next guy, let’s mosey to recover a few laps while saying goodbye to HoneyBee (off to get educated at F3 Community leadership forum).
• Line up in finishing order of Time Trial, brag about your time, create 3 teams of 3 PAX based on finish order (1,9, 4), (2, 8, 5), and (3, 7, 6).  Not exactly scientific, but hope it works to create even teams.  Bring out JRR Tolkien’s shiny new relay batons and distribute among the teams.
• 1600m Relay will split between team members.  Rules – each PAX needs to run at least 400m total, hand off as often as you want, finish fast. YHC doesn’t recall all of the teams, but he does recall JRR Tolkien crossed the line in last place (though uninjured).  Fastest relay time was 5:09, what a coincidence.
• Mosey a couple more laps to recover, COT, Abacus takes us out.  PAX depart.

The 1600m Results (click for Full Results):

*no previous time

The Moleskin:

• Weather couldn’t have been much better.  Shirtless temps, slight breeze, low humidity, no rain, dry track.
• First, the relay was a fun idea from JRR Tolkien.  Running AYG after exertion of the 1 mile was an OK idea.  Splitting up the PAX based on results was a fair and decent idea.  Giving the PAX 2 minutes to decide how they would run the relay was a smart idea, but it was too short because not sure they would have come up with anything more creative, therefore dumb idea.  The losing teams had each PAX run 1/3 of the distance (a little over 500 meters) continuously only passing off the baton once between each PAX.  The winning team strategy, having been practiced with baton passing the night before and strategy worked out with VDOT tables, distance preference, and other weird science, was to have SoftPretzel lead off 200m, pass to StumpHugger to run 200, pass to Bratwurst run 400, pass to StumpHugger for 200, pass to Soft Pretzel to run 300, and pass to Bratwurst for the anchor of 300m.
• Now, let’s talk about these amazing individual results!
• Abacus has been there for every 1 mile speed challenge at CMHS.  While this year wasn’t a PR, his dedication is admirable as only a few PAX have shown up for every one.  Now that his busy work season is over, he’ll be back in form soon with more consistency!
• Bunker has a PR by account this was his first mile race in a LOOOONG time (or ever).  However, his pacing to the sub 6 was admirable and he drug others along with him.  Known as the high mileage man of the SoB PAX, he’s already at 647mi total for 2016.
• Bratwurst – new PR since the glory days of being a teenager.
• HoneyBee has been putting in the time and dedication and starting to see results across the board.  As an indication that long distance training doesn’t sacrifice ALL speed, despite improving his marathon PR, he’s dropping the mile time every time he runs it (dropped 1 second from a month ago, too).  Sounded like he pulled an “early Haggis” on Tolkien and slipped by with over a lap to go and never looked back.
• JRR Tolkien’s first second time running the mile at Swift with the 5:22 a month ago and a 5:24 today.  Perhaps a very aggressive goal to go 5:10, he was on the pace early before the dizzybacks and stairs of the previous day (and HoneyBee) caught up to him.  Fabulous job on closing with strong performance – you’ll catch HoneyBee one day, sometime soon, in the near future.
• Soft Pretzel had a previous barrier of 6:00 in his head.  Running a month ago, he was just over.  Running a year ago, same thing.  Running a year and a half ago, you know the story.  Well, today was the day to keep on the number, pace it smartly, and go low.  This guy EARNED it!  Now that’s out of the way, better things to come.
• StrangeBrew, Bratwurst’s finest pupil and co-leader of Mountain Goat, has been working to drop time from the beginning.  Slight setback last year, but the dedication he’s been putting in to the running is admirable.  Dropping 20+ seconds is AMAZING!  Keep it rolling…
• StumpHugger was confused which watch, phone, iPAD he should believe for his final time, but in the end, it was still a PR!  He still feels there’s some speed that was left out there either earlier in the warmup or still in the tank, so he’s going to re run this soon.  When he does, another PR for sure.  It should be noted that SH was pretty Swift on 2×200 for the winning team in the Relay.
• Tuck has been developing into quite the runner lately, and this 1 Mile was his chance to show off the hard work.  PR by account of no previous recorded time, and the march to go lower starts now.
• Wild Turkey – first timed 1 mile since middle school (check!), high vis yellow shirt with reflective accents (check!), PR on the mile when there aren’t burpees involved (check!) – this guy is a Runner!  As probably the newest consistent PAX at Swift, the next year is going to bring some good things as the mile time keeps going lower and lower.

Announcements:

• F3 Dads Ballantyne starts Saturday morning 5/28 at 9am at the Bull Ring (Ballantyne Corp Pl and Brixham Hill Ave, 28277) near the new Sarah’s YMCA. Runs weekly through June.
• F3 Dads Matthews starts Saturday morning 6/4 at 9am at the softball fields in Colonel Beatties Ford Francis Beatty park at 4330 Weddington Rd, 28105.  Runs weekly through June.