Sub Ubi

Last Saturday, I ran with the Olin track team in the Jim Sheehan Memorial Track and Field Invitational at Fitsburg State College. I ran a 6:47, which was about 30 seconds faster than my time trial the Wednesday before the meet. I was surprised at the time, and all of us wondered if they had forgotten one of my laps.

Today, we ran in in the Northeastern Solomon Husky Invitational which was just down the road from Olin. The week before I went out fast, and finished weak. Today, my primary goal was to pace myself better in the first two laps and finish the race strong. As it turned out, I did just that: I was able to stride out and finish hard in the last lap, which is what I wanted. As a result, I managed a 6:38. Yes, I was almost two full minutes slower than all of the other runners… I even ran part of my race in the second lane just so they could blow by me.

(Apparently, I now have an overview page that tracks my performance as an athlete at meets or something… however, I don’t think we have any more meets this year…)

Overall, I’m incredibly pleased. I bought a pair of good running shoes back in October, and didn’t really do that much running during the autumn. In January, I committed to running with the track team a few times a week, and managed that pretty consistently. As a result, I’ve gotten myself into good enough shape that I could go out and compete in a 1500m race! Well, compete might be a bit too strong a word… but I went out on a track, took off running with the gun, and did pretty well for a guy who never really was much of a runner.

Interestingly, the loop I depicted in that blog post from October is the loop I ran this Wednesday. I ran it at near competition pace, and other than a 20 second break, I ran the whole thing at pace. Considering that, in October, I could barely shuffle that 2 mile distance… I’m pretty damn impressed.

BUT! Not as impressed as I am with Phillip “CRaZyMan!” Chung, who is a first-year student at Olin College. He ran (get this) the 10,000m, the 3,000m steeplechase, and the 5000m today… all in the same meet. The first event of the day was the 10K, which was immediately followed by the 3K steeplechase. I’m not kidding here: he finished the 10K, jogged over to the start of the steeplechase, stretched for a minute, and they started the race. It was the first time he had run the steeplechase. Later in the meet, he asked for permission to run the 5K (he hadn’t been registered in advance), and the meet official decided that anyone who ran the 10K and steeplechase should be allowed to run the 5K if they wanted to.

Absolutely crazy.

I may write a followup post about the meet; I will say it was certainly a lot of fun, and I had an excellent time just being outside, enjoying the weather, and cheering teammates on. It… well, it felt right. I think I always enjoyed track and field, and it was great to be part of a team again. Perhaps that’s just one more tick mark in the column labeled “Why Olin College is special.”

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