2007 NNHS Outdoor Track Schedule

Newton North 2007 Outdoor Track Schedule
From highschoolsports.net

Thu 04/05/2007 vs Natick         HOME
Tue 04/10/2007 va Framingham     HOME
Tue 04/17/2007 vs Walpole        HOME
Tue 04/24/2007 vs Brookline      HOME
Sat 04/28/2007 State Relays      @ Andover 
Tue 05/01/2007 vs Weymouth       @ Weymouth
Sat 05/05/2007 Weston Invite     @ Weston (5 p.m.)
Tue 05/08/2007 vs Braintree      @Braintree
Sat 05/12/2007 State Coaches     @Plymouth South
Tue 05/15/2007 vs Needham        HOME
Sat 05/19/2007 BSC Meet          @ Natick 
Sat 05/26/2007 Division I Meet   @ Lowell 
Sat 06/02/2007 MIAA State Finals @ Holyoke 
Tue 06/12/2007 New Englands      @ Fitchburg

Subject to change. www.highschoolsports.net
for an up-to-date schedule.

Carried Away

"They are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carrieth away." - Job 21, 18

There's nothing like that first outdoor track workout in late March, knowing that whatever hothouse times you were running indoors, you can forget about them now. The track is mostly empty and the straightaways are long. It feels good striding down the backstretch but then you come around the far turn and a gust of wind hits you and suddenly you're straining every muscle just to keep yourself moving forward.

Forget about form. Forget about maintaining a rhythm. Tuck in behind someone if you can, and if it's your turn to lead, lower your head and try to avoid getting blown out of the first lane onto the infield.

If you were trying to run even splits, you can forget about that, too. When this workout goes into the books, it won't look very impressive, with lap times well off what you were running only a few weeks ago in the relative comfort of indoors. This workout will not be about times, it will be about effort.

And it will also be about adaptation and survival, both individually and as a pack -- sticking together with your mates, each taking a turn at the front, suffering the brunt of the wind for a bit while everyone else gets a tiny bit of relief. And then when it's your turn to follow, running in as close a formation as possible. At all costs, not getting separated from the group. A track workout on a windy day is good mental preparation for racing. You can't let gaps develop.

Ah, but then you come around and the wind behind you feels like a miracle -- and it's suddenly child's play to lift and sprint and fly down the back straight like you had wings. Everyone is suddenly fast again. If you are doing intervals of 600 or 1000, you arrange them to get the maximum benefit from this tailwind.

There is a slapstick element to your workout. To an observer, the runners look comical as they scrunch their faces and bodies down to avoid the worst of the blast. It helps to see the (admittedly bleak) humor in the situation. You are Buster Keaton in racing flats, hanging on as the whirlwind does its best to blow you from the face of the planet.

And finally the last interval is complete; the howling about your ears subsides. You shake hands with those who have suffered with you. You pull on ten layers of shirts and pants and gloves and windbreakers. You manage a wan smile.

"It's great to be outdoors again. Same time next week?"

Healing Miles...

For a long time, I thought that there was a more-or-less linear relationship between the number of miles you ran and the number of injuries you got. I figured mileage was a necessary evil, a potent booster for aerobic fitness, but also a dangerous burden to lay upon the fragile bones and tendons of the runner's body.

I accepted the fact that the body was a mechanism -- like a car or a set of bicycle tires -- and it would wear out like them. The more miles, the more wear and tear. It followed, that the very worst thing you could do was to run "junk mile" -- slow runs that added to the wear but didn't promote better fitness.

I think it was John Glenn who famously remarked that he figured that the Good lord had given him a certain number of heartbeats and he wasn't going to waste them running.

I think it was my friend Kevin Bruno who first put a crack in this idea. He told me that when he was really fit -- by which he meant when he was running 100 miles a week -- he recovered very quickly from all manner of ailments. At first, I was skeptical (If you knew Kevin, you would have been skeptical, too). I figured that anyone running 100 miles a week should not be trusted. But he persisted, and told me that he felt that at the very least, I should be doing long runs (15-20 miles) once a week, and that if I did, I would find myself recovering faster from workouts, races, etc.

While I think there are important cautions to this approach, I think that Kevin is basically right -- or to be even more careful -- I think that in my experience, I have found a healing benefit to doing longer runs. It seems to me that when I include one run of 90 minutes or longer once a week, with friends at a conversational pace on trails or through the woods, I do in fact seem to recover much more quickly. I guess I could go out on a limb and say that in general, as I run higher mileage, I seem to be able to handle more (workouts, etc.) and am able to come back from a hard effort in just a few days.

Now, there ARE certainly injury risks to running more. Some parts of the body do wear out, and the entire body needs rest and recovery to benefit from any kind of training. But at the same time, I have found that recovery can be active -- recovery from a track workout or race can involve slow, easy jogging or even running at a normal training pace. Some running (or at least walking) is often better than total rest, even for such demanding efforts as marathons.

One possible explanation for the healing benefit of long runs, or mileage in general, is the phenomenon of capillarization: the growth of more capillaries to serve the skeletal muscles. Run every day for a few years and your body will respond by producing more capillaries. More capillaries not only deliver more oxygen to working muscles, they carry away more metabolic wastes. A trained distance runner has a cardiovascular system that is better at recovery, repair, and rejuvenation of muscles.

I think ultimately, the most important thing about recovery running is to know yourself well enough to know how to take it easy when running. For me, it involves throwing away the watch and running someplace that I really like. that's as important in my recovery as the number of miles run. It's always a surprise to me how much of sound training practice involves doing what feels good.

And as for John Glenn, what he failed to appreciate is that if he ran every day -- if he "wasted" an hour's worth of heartbeats every day -- he would find that his resting heart rate during the other 23 hours would be lower enough to more than offset the heartbeats he spent in exercise. Sometimes the easiest path is the longest one.

At the USATF Masters Indoor Championships

I see that it has been three weeks since my last blog entry, probably enough time to lose most of my readership.

It has been an interesting three weeks for me as far as running goes: I got a chance to run with Noah and Dave during their Spring Break (two weeks ago), raced a half-marathon (March 18), and then this Saturday, ran my final indoor race of the season, a mile at the USATF Masters Indoor Championships, held at our own Reggie Lewis Center.

Racing the half-marathon made sense, given my training over the last three months. this winter I chose not to focus on indoor track at all, but instead put most of my effort into building a mileage base. From December through early February, I ran between 60 and 70 miles a week every week, with a token track workout once a week to try to preserve some leg turnover. Like everyone else, I got sick in February, and struggled through a couple of weeks with very low mileage, then ran a 5K on the track (16:25), and three good weeks of training later, ran 1:16:49 for the half marathon in New Bedford, my best time in years.

So why ruin it all by trying to run a mile, a relative sprint, only six days after a long hard effort in a half marathon? Well, I suppose it was an experiment to see just how much speed I had lost by skipping fast workouts. But the real reason is that the national meet is a lot of fun, and seems like an appropriate way to say a final farewell to the indoor season and to the Reggie lewis track for another year.

I believe that the USATF Masters Indoor Championships is the last indoor meet held anywhere in the world. Everyone else has gone out of doors by now. the HS outdoor season is a week old already, with teams shoveling snow off their outdoor tracks to clear a lane for doing intervals. It has been two weeks since the NSIC meeet, four weeks since the Mass. State meet, and six weeks since the Bay State league championships. In celestial terms, we are past the equinox and hurtling headlong toward the solstice. Daylight savings time is in effect and the sun sets after 7:00 p.m. I guess the point I am trying to make, is that it is high time we all went out of doors and got a little fresh air.

Alright, but one more race on the boards -- just for old time's sake. So, leg-weary and feeling like a plodder, I found myself warming up for the mile at the national meet.

The first time I ever ran at this meet, as a 40-year-old, I learned an important lesson: the bigger the meet, the less "time" matters. At these championships, everyone runs for place. It's a funny thing, but I had to turn forty to experience a true "tactical" race, where no one takes the lead and the early laps go by at pedestrian speeds, leading to violent bursts of lead in the later laps. It was an important lesson.

Five years later, in 2003, as a newly-minted 45-year-old, I applied the lesson, and managed to win the mile. That race, too, went out very slowly, but i had learned enough so that I didn't help out the kickers by leading them through the early laps. Instead, I waited with everyone else through a slow first half, and just as all the really fast finishers were dozing, I took off with four laps to go and immediately opened up a gap of fifteen meters. The kickers never knew what hit them. once in the lead, I never slowed down and no one ever got close to me. I ended up running 4:33, running splits of 70, 71, 66, 65. It was one of the most enjoyable races of my life.

On Saturday, I had no expectations of running sub 4:40. I also had no expectations of being anywhere close to the lead, since there were two runners entered who had recent times of 4:29 and 4:32 to their credit. I figured they might as well be in a different race, but after that, the field wasn't too strong, so I hoped to be in contention for 3rd, if all went well.

But nothing is ever certain with old guys. The two really fast entrants -- one from New York, one from California -- didn't show up, and the another guy with a seed time of 4:40 had dropped out of the 3000 the night before and was no where to be seen for the mile. So when the gun went off, there was no one setting the pace.

I felt like I was jogging as we passed the 400 in 73 seconds. And it got slower, as everyone bunched up and no one wanted the lead. Through the 600, I focused on not getting tripped from behind, and I moved onto the outside shoulder of the leader. I stayed there through another lap, knowing how this race was going to unfold. I knew that if it was up to me, we were for damn sure not going to come down to a last lap sprint with everyone going by me. As we approached the 800 mark (2:29 - !), I looked at all that open blue track in front of me and I took off.

The immediate effect of my acceleration was a pleasant feeling of release. I was no longer worried that someone would step on my heel or trip me from behind. I listened for the sounds of pursuit and also to the announcer to try to gauge who was doing what behind me. From what I could tell, I had strung out the rather large pack and no there were three guys chasing me. I knew all of them. I knew that Bob collins would be very hard to shake. I knew that Derrick Staley was an 800 runner and had a nasty kick, if I couldn't run it out of him. I knew that Ted Poulus had run a hard 3000 the night before. I felt great.

After a 73 and a 76, I ran my 3rd quarter in 70 (3:39), and I still had plenty left. This was not a great field, and I didn't think too many people would be able to handle another fast quarter and still manage any kind of kick. I pushed the pace again. With a lap to go, Collins was still right behind and didn't seem perturbed by the pace. The rest of the pack had fallen back. Now into the final lap, I wondered if I could shake Bob, even as I prepared to see him come up on my outside. On the back straight, he made his move and went by. I accelerated but couldn't match him. Around the final turn I looked for a last little bit of speed but it wasn't enough. he crossed the line first in 4:46.9, with me second 4:47.6. The times were so slow! But I had run my last quarter in 68, my last half in 2:18. Another tactical race at Nationals, and an unexpected 2nd place.

So that's it. the end of the indoor season. Time to get back on the roads and forget about the tight turns of Reggie for another year. The next time I race here, I'll be 50, running against a new group of guys. I don't know how the race will go -- fast from the gun or tactical again -- but I'll be looking forward to it.

Now it's time to get some fresh air.

NNHS Alumni Results - Weekend of 3/3/07

At the ECAC Div III Championships, Noah Jampol and Dan Chebot faced off on the anchor leg of the Distance Medley for Johns Hopkins and Rochester, respectively. According to Bob Jampol, Noah split 4:28 and Dan split about 4:35. Noah also ran a 2:00 split in the 4x800 relay.

At the last chance meet at Fayetteville, Chris Barnicle ran 3000m in 8:13.62, and reported that he felt great and had a lot left, kicking a 29 second last 200m. That's great news for the Arkansas sophomore, who is coming back from mono and other health problems that started in the Fall. A week ago Chris was pressed into service for Arkansas as a rabbit in the 5K at the SEC championships, leading the field through 2 Miles before dropping out.

Dave Polgar competed for BU at the IC4A championships in the 4x800, but the team DNF'd -- no information about what happened yet.

Smith Wins New Englands

David Smith, the MA Indoor Shot Put Champion and defending Outdoor Champ, added the New England Indoor Crown to his trophy case Friday night, winning the shot with a throw of 57' 5.5", almost a foot and a half better than 2nd place.

Smith was the only Newton North athlete to compete at the New England's.