The Fajita Mile

Tonight was Fajita Mile night - a celebration of the cross country season for Kingwood High School.  There are mile races of various divisions for the XC kids, parents, siblings, and alums, as well as a couple of 800 m races for some of the track kids.  The races are capped by the varsity boys racing a 3200.  The evening culminates with a large fajita feed and socializing. 

Myself, I managed to run a 6:02 mile; good enough for second in the dad's division with first place going to a 5:40 miler.  So it looks like I have some work to do for next year.  I came into this with about eight weeks of focused training, so I'm not too disappointed given the short amount of work leading up to tonight.  I thought I may be at a 5:58-6:00 finishing time based on training, and having gone through 400 in 1:28 and 800 in 2:59, felt I was in a good position to meet that goal.  That third 400 is a b--ch though, and with 200 left to go I was at 5:25.  So I needed a fairly quick 35 second 200 to finish in 6-flat - not tonight though.

Overall I'm pretty happy but know there is still much work to do.  It was a nice change of pace from mostly LSD stuff that I had been doing for much of the past year.  It was a beautiful night out and running the track under the lights was fantastic, as was watching the kids do their thing.  William also ran a PR mile by about a minute under his time at the start of the season, so a very good night for him as well.

I'm pretty focused on starting another cycle of training, after a week to ten days away from the track, that will include a bit more mileage overall, and some weeks with three quality workouts.  I will mostly be following a Jack Daniels program for 1500-3000 m racing, but will also be racing some 5k events as a secondary goal to break 20 minutes.  One thing I need to get more on top of is more sleep.  These last couple of weeks saw me getting about five to six hours per night - can't last long like that.  Dropping about ten pounds along the way is going to help as well.  I sit at about 170 pounds currently, so getting down under 165 will make a pretty big difference.

Anyhow, a fun night and all that is left for William of XC season is the district meet next Thursday.  Time for some fajita leftovers!