Meet of the Miles

Monday, January 9, 2017:

This is a delightful 1-mile race on the 200-meter indoor track at the University of Minnesota Field House.  It attracts lots of college-age young people and quite a few oldsters as well.  It's also the first of the 13 races of the season-long Minnesota Grand Prix running competition.  I have done this race many times, and enjoy the atmosphere in the Field House, with runners who can do a mile in 4:20 or faster, and others of us who need almost three times as much time.  All are welcome.

Personally, I find the mile distance to be the most intense of any of the races I have ever run.  Nothing makes me (and others) breathe harder than running almost all-out for 8 minutes or so.  For that reason, in fact, and because the air is very dry in the Field House in January, the organizer of this race brings big bags of Halls cough drops.

This time, though, I didn't race.  I incorporated the 1-mile distance into my training program, and ran the first of the 8 laps, walked about three, ran another, walked again, and finished with a third running lap.  It's a poor way to win a race, but it fit the training schedule pretty well.  Time 10:58.  No pains, no problems.

Before the race I did my training regimen for a while, including three of the running portions, so the total was six, just as prescribed by the program.