I am in NYC for work and found a lovely track (John V Lindsay East River Park track) right on the river and only a mile from where I’m staying. Great river views on the way there and back, and great people watching. I forgot to get a photo of the track itself but got some of the city and river
I raced the 1600 at FLRC’s June meet last night. It was in the 80s and I wasn’t quite sure how the heat would affect my race.
Almost everyone in my heat took it out fast immediately. I quickly decided that the pace was took quick and let everyone go. A significant gap formed ahead of me even just 150 meters into the race. I got through the first lap in a sensible (for me) 73 seconds (4:52 pace). I hoped to start catching people who had gone out too fast.
Sure enough, as the race progressed I reeled in two people. Then I saw that the next person ahead of me was current Challenge points leader Adrian Haws. With a lap to go I scrounged up as much acceleration as I could and tried to go get him, but he was too far ahead and of course he wasn’t slowing down. I finished in 7th place in 4:53, 7 seconds behind Adrian.
This wasn’t a great race for me. It felt tough from start to finish. I’ll chalk it up to the heat.
Epilogue: I ran a 59.7 400 later in the meet. That somehow felt a little better, and I was happy to break 60 on already tired legs.
I was delighted to find the Cornell track open this morning as they were mowing the infield. Did my post run 8x100m strides and then realized I could log a Sweet1600 effort. I did surprising well despite my fatigue and the oppressive heat and humidity. I forgot to take a photo, oh well.
Aaargh, Adam!
So, I was headed to Hammond Hill early this morning to run a Hoctathon loop before the group run there at 8:30 this morning. On the way through Dryden, I realized I was ahead of schedule. Rather than use the time to do some bonus trail miles at Hammond Hill, I instead ran a Sweet 1600 at Dryden HS. You’re messing with my head! 
I missed this morning’s group run at Hammond Hill to care of some business on the track at the USATF Niagara Outdoor Championships meet. The main event of my day was the mile. The only goal was to run under 4:50. I also entered the 800 but didn’t have any serious goals for that.
The 75 degree temperature and 94% humidity felt cool and refreshing compared to FLRC’s Tuesday meet, and my heat of the mile (which wasn’t even the fastest heat!) looked like it would give me a competitive race.
The starting gun fired and the mad dash for positioning ensued. This was the most crowded track race I’ve ever run and I found myself a bit boxed in early in lap 1. There was so much going I didn’t even look at the clock to see my first lap split (and I wasn’t wearing a watch).
Soon the race strung out and gave me some breathing room. I latched myself onto the back of a pack that I thought would take me under 4:50. When we got to halfway I did look at the clock: 2:26, 2:27… I was behind schedule but I was confident that I’d be able to close under 2:23.
I stayed in touch with my pack through most of lap 3. Once we hit the home stretch with 500 to go I made a move to get around the pack and put myself in 3rd place. 2nd place was far enough ahead that I didn’t have a realistic chance of catching him, but I did try. I kept my position in 3rd and finished in 4:47.
About an hour later I ran the 800 in 2:12. That’s a good day at the track!
Way to represent FLRC, Patrick! And being able to stay ahead of Scott Weeks is always an achievement.
Life has been a lot. It has been a few weeks since my last run. Today I had to take my daughter to practice in Tburg, so I did a few miles on the track. Walked 0.5, ran 2, walked 0.5 for a total of 3 miles. It didn’t feel good, but I got it done.
In Chamonix, about to start the TMB. All four Lamberts did a Sweet 1600 on the track at the 1924 Winter Olympics complex. We only had hiking boots so we just walked it. Probably the most scenic track I’ve been to.
Now that’s gorgeous track scenery, further enhanced by a snazzy FLRC Challenge shirt. 
Beautiful morning for a Sweet 1600! I beat last year’s time by roughly 15 seconds. I couldn’t ask for more!
This morning on my drive to Tburg to drop a kid at a sport thing, I was daydreaming about this time next year when hopefully she will be able to drive herself.
Since a trip to/from Tburg x2 would take 50+ minutes, I decided to hit the half mile track for a total of 3 miles. Half mile walk warmup, 2 mile running, 0.5 mile walk cooldown. I like the longer track; fewer laps tricks me into thinking the miles go by faster.
Funny that @adamengst should post this in the weekly recap yesterday:
Today I went to the Newfield track to do exactly this and see how long it would take to run a total of 1 mile at sub 4 pace. I planned on running 100 meters at a time every 2-4 minutes.
I lined up at the mile start and covered the first 109 meters in 17.8 seconds. On subsequent reps I used a running start. I ran the next 11 100s between 14.0 and 14.8.
In lap 3 my legs started to feel like they were filling up with sand, but the individual reps were short enough that I wasn’t struggling. I decided to run the last lap as 2 200s. I managed to squeeze out a 28.2 and 28.3 by running all-out. The total running time was 3:53.3, but the Challenge-legal time including breaks was 34:43.
This was probably an inadvisable workout. 1 mile is a lot of ground to cover at a pace that is significantly faster than my 800 meter race pace. But it was a fun bucket list workout to run a sub 4 minute (really a sub 40 minute) mile.
This morning I paced my buddies at the Cornell track for a Sweet 1600 that was mostly walking after the first lap. The boys’ goal for the year was to complete the two shortest courses. They handled the mile with aplomb despite the heat and were excited to “run another Runners Club Challenge”.
We’ve been in Myrtle Beach all week for our daughter’s dance competition, and I got a chance this morning to squeeze in a 1600 at the high school track in town!
This morning I sacrificed my well being for 6 minutes for the greater good of the Fab 40s by running a hard 1600 at Schoellkopf. Thanks to erratic pacing I managed a disappointing 6:11 but improved my Sweet 1600 age grade score by about 20 points. Now I’ll have to start pulling my weight on the road courses to hopefully stave off the 50s for the team win.
I’m on vacation on Cape Ann with my family for the week and having aunts and grandparents around makes it easier to leave my kids home while I go for a run! Yesterday I found the local high school track while I was out so I decided to do my Sweet 1600 this morning. Despite a couple storms, it’s been hot and humid all week and this morning was no exception. The ocean views on the way to the track however, are exceptional.
Nearly done with the Tarmac Challenge, I just needed the track mile at T-Burg High and then Run Rabbit. I went for the Sweet 1600 first to avoid running the track after dark and risking a ticket or whatever.
@scottpdawson told me correctly that the THS track would be accessible during Grassroots weekend. But what I didn’t realize was that the school’s parking lots were reserved for official festival parking. $20 a day for some kind of fund raiser. I’m all for supporting community-funded school initiatives but $20 to park for 15
minutes was too steep for my liking.
I explained to the woman at the entrance that I was only there for the track and would be back out in 15 minutes tops. I declined to get into details about why. At first she seemed skeptical, then took down my name and plate number and told me I had an hour before the cops would come back looking for cars to tow.
Then I asked which way to go for the track since I’d never been to the campus. “You know, I really don’t think you’re just here to run.” Ugh, now I’m getting unwarranted attitude, though I understand why she might think people would try to take advantage of it. “No ma’am, I’m not selling my integrity for 20 bucks” is what I nearly blurted out. Instead I reassured her I’d leave quickly and let her know on the way out. She gave it some thought and waved me through, but not before another stern warning about getting towed in an hour.
Negotiations took longer than the 8 minutes 11 seconds I spent running four laps. Afterward I ran straight back to my car to get out of there stat before further incident. I gave the lady a friendly wave and “thank you”, letting her know I was indeed not trying to pull a fast one. Then back through festival traffic down to Taughannock.
Oh my that’s hilarious! I didn’t think about the parking at the school during Grassroots. Wow!
Ok, so this was a full on fanboy run for me. Growing up in Southwestern Ontario, the University of Michigan was THE place to get a running scholarship. I didn’t. Not even close. But a guy I ran at the same time as in high school (note I didn’t use race, again, not even close) did. He went on to a 5th place at the Atlanta Olympics. My best finish was a win in a Masters 600m. Similar?
Anyway, fanboy. Got my 1600m in in the shadows of the Big House
