First, let’s get the fun stuff out of the way
Cathleen video here.
Boys video (start and finish) here.
And then there’s Kevin. Kevin has gone back to his Mr. Miyagi, Ashton’s Dad from up the street, to improve his running this summer in the hopes of making it into the top 7 in cross-country this fall. So, Kevin’s been running about once every 2 days for most of the summer, and, on Tuesdays, has been going to run with the Mid-Michigan Track Club.
The MMTC is a group of adults that runs different workouts each week in locales throughout the area; some have been at the high school, others have been at other schools and more than a few are at some of the bigger cemeteries. These workouts, for the most part, are relays where you run, rest while your partner runs, rinse, repeat until exhausted.
I think, finally, Kevin has gotten the message that if he’s going to be serious about running, he needs to know his pace and run to the pace that he wants to achieve. And he’s been doing that at track club for weeks now, consistently running at a 6 minute mile pace (or better) to start and trying to sustain a 6:20 pace (the goal) as he gets tired. He’s been doing this; he’s been rocking it.
So, we figured Ele’s Race would be a good thing…he’s been averaging that 6:00 to 6:20 pace over 3 miles with rests, talk with the guru, set the goal to run three 6:40 miles for the race. If Kevin does this, and it seems likely that he can, he’d finish a little better than 21 minutes and have his best time ever.
Well, as you know, this didn’t happen. Mom and Dad are at the finish line looking forlornly up the road at 22, 23, 24 minutes and wondering where Kevin is…..and he trots in at 25:39 or something like that. Video of this finish is here.
Kevin comes up after the race; really can’t explain it, says he came off the pace after the first mile(!) and was pretty disgusted. Boys come up at that point and need to go to the bathrooms; ask Kevin to take them to the porta-potties and he says he needs to go as well. Boys come back….no Kevin. Kevin comes back 5-10 minutes later and says he has been over there with, um, problems. Have to think these…um, problems slowed him down, but, really at a loss to explain it. He thinks he didn’t hydrate well enough (although he didn’t cramp) and that having pancakes (a good pre-race breakfast) and sausage (not so good) wasn’t a good idea.
Next day, Kevin goes and runs the 3-mile loop to the high school and back and stays on pace for 2.5 of the 3 miles. At track club on Tuesday he just kicks butt….ran the first 4-5 runs in a pace under 6 min/mile and stayed, for the most part, under the 6:20/mile pace that he was shooting for.
So, we’ll see what happens when he gets back from Blue Lake. Have to hope that Ele’s Race was just a bad day.
Before the race starts
