This was a five mile race in a little town north of Lafayette. Here's what I thought of it in 1997:
I got there a
little later than I had hoped. But in plenty of time to register, talk to Paul Loomis
and Tony Greig and get in about 12 minutes of warm up. The weather was warm and
sunny, it was in the low 70's by the start of the race. I felt okay, a little
tired from the week's two speed workout. On Tuesday I had done a 400m
repeat workout of 16 400m repeats at an average time of 1:21.5
with an average heart rate of 175. Thursday I ran a ladder workout, 2x400m,
1x800m, 1x1600m, 1x800m, 2x400m. The 400m repeats were okay, the 800m repeats
were okay too, but the 1600m repeat was horrible and I came in at 5:52, pretty
pathetic. My hamstring's have been tight for a few weeks now.
During my warmup I felt okay. My striders before the start were okay
and I hoped that things would go well. I didn't see anyone who would blow away
the field so I thought I had a shot at winning. The gun started us off and we headed out of
town and nearly got run over by a car. The adrenalin from the start and from
our near death experience had me reved up. I was leading a group of four of us
as we rounded the first turn. I lead that way for about 1200m before four guys
moved ahead, Paul being one of them. They pulled ahead and I tried to
go with them. That didn't last long and I had to let them go. I wasn't too far
behind when we came to the first mile at 5:39. I hadn't blazed through the
first mile, so I hoped I would have a lot left for the rest of the race.
We were running into the wind headed south out of town. The sun was
warm, but the wind kept us cool. My hamstring's hurt quite a bit and I felt I
was slowing down. Still I was hanging on to fifth place, but the guys ahead
were pulling away. By two miles my time was 11:49 and I'd just run a
spectacular 6:10 mile. Not my suckiness was kicking in as only my suckiness
could! The back of my legs were sore all the way from my knees to my butt.
At the turn around I got caught by two other guys and we almost got run
over by a woman who decided she needed to drive at 45 mph through the middle of
a road race. After a little shot of adrenalin I kicked in and stayed close to
the two guys who had passed me. With all that I blitzed through the third mile
at 18:06! Wa-hoo a lightning quick 6:17 mile! I was flying now! NOT! What
the hell was going on, I was dying! I just kept getting slower and slower.
During the forth mile I took off my shirt, I was soaked with sweat and
sucking air and hurting. I managed to catch one guy, but got passed by
another. Mile four came at 24:24 and I'd run another spectacular 6:18 mile!
The slowest yet! How much could I suck? That was the question on all the
spectator's minds as they stood along the race course in the corn fields
watching me stumble by.
With a mile to go I heard footsteps and tried to press so that I didn't
get passed again. This lasted until the last half mile when I got passed and
then on the final quarter mile on the uphill when I got passed again. My final
pathetic time was 30:35. An amazingly slow 6:06 mile pace. I cannot
comprehend just how much I sucked that day.
My only hope for the marathon is that I am really really tired. Over
the last two weeks I've put in six hard speed workout, four on the track and
two race. Over the last ten weeks I've averaged 67 miles a week. During the
same period for my Boston training I averaged 64 miles a week and during last
year's Chicago training I averaged 62 miles a week. Is that enough to make me
tired enough to suck as much as I have this fall in the races? I hope so. It
could also mean I'll run the fastest marathon ever, so that's what I'm hoping
for!
Back to the Running Vita of James B. Elliott