[RACE REPORT + SWAG] Alex Wilson Invitational DMR
This is my first race write up of any kind, and after doing a little reasearch, it seems like they tend to be pretty verbose. This is not proofread in any way, shape, or form, and I also tend to use too many parantheticals and too much profanity when I type. Anyway, now that you've been warned, I hope you guys enjoy.
Race information
- What: Alex Wilson Invitational
- When: February 20th 2016
- Where: Notre Dame, Indiana
- How far: Distance Medley Relay (1200m to 400m to 800m to Mile)
- Results: Race Results, see bottom of this post for splits
- Video: On fucking FloTrack :(
- Rap Song: See bottom
Pre-race
The 5 of us were informed in the training room on the Sunday following our last meet that there was a 10-25% chance of us being flown up to Notre Dame the following weekend to run a DMR. I was simultaneously praying for a weekend off and curious about what kind of time we could run with everyone firing on all cylinders. After having ASSURED my professors that I'd finally be in class on Thursday and Friday of the upcoming week, making tentative weekend plans, and looking foward to a weekend to catch up on life before the conference meet, I got the fateful call.
The mission was simple: run the fastest DMR we could in an effort to get into the fast heat at the conference meet. Our relatively soft school record of 9:43 was likely to fall in the process barring any kind of hamstring or baton related catastrophe.
Our story starts Thursday morning, with hopes of completing homework or preparing for upcoming tests sufficiently quashed. I woke up early (for me... 10am) for a phone interview which I think went well. I then headed to the locker room with my roommate to crank out some Thursday easy mileage. We did about 7 on the Atlanta Beltline and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. I showered, packed, (why would I pack earlier?) and headed to the locker room to meet the rest of the guys who were traveling (four in the DMR, one in the open 800). We left campus on Thursday at 5 and I drove a couple guys to the airport. We threw on some rap instrumentals (obviously) and freestyled the whole way there. D1 Trap & Field was on the road again, for what (for some of us) was our 6th meet in 6 weeks. After cutting it kind of close in security (and somehow accidentally making it through with a book of matches in my jacket pocket) we slammed Willy's burritos and made it to the terminal. I spent the flight defacing a Sky magazine with a sharpie and making stupid pictures out of the snapshots of us that our coaches included in our meet itinerary.
After a turbulent flight into the Windy City, we landed safely in Chicago. We spent the night, got shitty ass sleep due to a domestic violence situation in the hotel room next to ours, woke up, went for a run (see metallic bean pic), and rented a minivan to whip to South Bend. The race was to take place on Notre Dame's (fuckin sweet) 320m Meyo Field indoor track. We arrived Friday night and headed to the track for some 200s at race pace. I felt like shit and ran them too slow, but hadn't slept well and hadn't had caffeine all day in an effort to make the next nights sleep considerably better. We headed back to the hotel, grabbed dinner, and bedded down.
Race Day
We woke up early to do some drills and shake out a bit. We slammed some breakfast (a fairly uniform oatmeal/banana/yogurt across the squad) and jumped in the van. The meet atmosphere was typical of a last-chance type meet, very quiet and very sparsely populated. Some of my teammates disagree, but I personally prefer that sort of environment when trying to run fast. Some serious teams were there to compete, though, and we were surrounded by some pretty legendary NCAA athletic talent. We chilled for a bit until the sound system switched from classic rock radio to the meet playlist. We stretched and head bobbed to Sandstorm by Darude blasting over the speakers until 11:05am hit- 1 hour until race time. I downed my caffeine and slowly started to feel alive for the first time in ~48 hours. We went through a normal warmup together and then all parted ways to do some drills relevant to our respective legs. I was on the 800 leg, and made sure to do considerably more fast strides than I did the week before at Vanderbilt. I couldn't risk feeling sluggish and letting the team down with a lackluster performance. This is always the kicker in relays. While I was nowhere near as stressed as I was at Penn Relays, anyone who's run a relay knows that fucking up a relay event is far more devastating than running slow in a personal event. Especially when you're being flown out without the rest of the team specifically to run it.
The gun went off with the baton safely in the hand of our true freshman 1200 leg, who is no fucking joke. He ran 4:08 for the full mile and 1:49.6 for the 800 in high school, and he stayed in the running through his ~4 laps in 2:56.9. I couldn't see the exchange from my position in my exchange zone, but I breathed a sign of relief when I saw three leading 400m runners come around the turn with our 400 leg hot on their heels. He threw down a 47 and change and got me the baton safely. By this point I was in 4th or 5th but the race was still very tight. I held onto the pack and came through 400 to my assistant coach shouting "53", which was fine. I felt the pace start to quicken (which in 800 terms almost always just means effort... despite it truly feeling like the pace is picking up, it's almost always slowing down) and I strained to keep up. With 200+ to go I threw it into gear and passed a fading runner in blue to close to the final exchange zone. I haven't seen the video but I'm pretty sure an Iowa guy was surging with me. I got the baton to our mile leg and spent like 45 seconds gathering myself and summoning the will to jog to a point on the track where I could scream my ass off at him.
He ran a great leg in just about 4 flat. We crossed the line in 4th or something, I don't know, but we clinched a school record in 9:34 and change. SO MANY DMRS RAN FAST THIS WEEKEND. Seriously. Look at the D1 rankings on TFRRS. Our time is like 4 seconds too slow to make it to Nationals, but honestly, that almost isn't our fault. Everyone else just needs to stop running so damn fast.
Post-race
Everyone was fairly stoked about their peformances. Each split was right about in line with everyone's PRs, and I was definitely ahead of my own personal PR pace (1:49.6). I split 1:48.8, and I felt pretty strong doing it. We cooled down around Notre Dame's campus while my roommate/teammate of 3 years warmed up for his open 800. We made it back inside before the start of his race and yelled at him louder than I've probably ever yelled. He threw down a solid ass race, hung with the pack, and finished strong in a huge new PB of 1:49.85, his first time sub-1:50, which is a huge (half-) milestone for an 800m runner. A couple of us cooled down with him afterwards to get a few more minutes in, and morale was high. It was the sort of post-comp team atmosphere that you hope for at every meet. True running bliss. After we stretched a bit we headed back to the hotel to record what I hope you've all been waiting for... our latest track, "NOTRE DAMN", featuring (in order of appearance):
https://soundcloud.com/1106trackmob/notre-damn
YUNG GUAC (1:48.8 800m leg)
MC EATS PUSSY 4 BREAKFAST (2:56.9 1200m leg)
J GREENZ (4:00.7 mile leg)
MC A-Z (47.8 400m leg)
WEALTHY FRIEND CHRIS (1:49.85 open 800m)
What's next?
We woke up and ran for 45 minutes along a straight shot of highway on the flattest, farmiest terrain we city boys have encountered in a while. I'm typing this on the flight back from South Bend to Atlanta where we'll arrive at like 3pm. At that point, my roommate and I will do our best to pick up the mangled pieces of our academic careers before dropping them again and leaving for Boston on Wednesday morning. Sleep, diet, and everything else will have to remain on-point until that time. No word yet on whether or not we plan to field a DMR at the conference meet, but I'll keep you guys posted. Or maybe I won't. I don't know.
Pictures
Posted Feb 21, 2016, 8:31 PM UTC · edited