3000m indoors RR

OMG, this was so much fun. Seriously! I loved it. Racing is fun.

I found this race on Monday and decided to sign up while I was still riding the high wave from Saturday race. PPC was little concerned about what tight indoor track turns would do to my ITB and so was I but as I said I was willing to take the risk. (So far so good)
Knee (not ITB, something different but nothing serious, but I was worried it might impact the ITB) did not feel that great the whole week so I ran only 30min on Monday and then did not run for the rest of the week.

The race itself. 3000m was not until 5:30pm, so I spent the morning watching several episodes of Everybody loves Raymond on Netflix and then around 2pm drove an hour to the university where this was taking place. Watched few events, then warmed up (~17min w/up, stretching, 4 strides), put on my racers (I have these racing flats that I bought in France and the last time I wore them was April 2010) and it was time to line up.

I did not care about my time for this race. I went there just to race, have fun, and see what happens. There were 14 girls racing (I do not remember the last time I race with other 13 people on an indoor track) and my seeding time (I put the 11min, although I did not believe that I could run that) was the third slowest:)

So the guns goes off and after the initial mayhem (elbows flying, spiking and all that stuff you can expect when 14 people start running into the curve on a small indoor track) we settled and started ticking of 41-42s for 200. I know that because people were yelling out splits each lap. Basically we went through 400m in 1:23ish, which is the fastest 400m I have run in 2 years or so (the last time I ran 400s ~80sec was in 6x500m workouts that we did every freaking Th when I was still in France, and nobody was forcing me to run at certain controlled pace so I did whatever). Then 1000m was in 3:30, which my friends is the fastest 1000m I have run since college (and considering the fact that I was horrible runner in college this might be the fastest 1000m I have run since high school). Now you can imagine what happened next, right?:) Next 1k splits were 3:45 and 3:50. The final time 11:05.94. I will take that. I got lapped only once (the first pack took off after the first 1k (and I just died...) and went 10:10ish) and was not the last (9th our of 14).

You might think that I would be upset about the flawed pacing but I am not. It went exactly like I wanted it to go. I was totally surprised when we went 3:30 but that's it. I did not care about my time. I was there to put myself out there and have fun.

And you know what? It WAS fun. It was so much fun that I am doing another one on January 11. And not only that. I am going to do both the mile and 3000m. You heard me right. The mile. If one race is fun, then two races would be double the fun, right? There should be around 2 hours between the mile and 3k so it is doable. But I think that I will need to be better about my pacing in the mile and do not go out with the others in 5:10-15 pace because then I will end up walking (literally!) the last 600m.

By the way. My arms hurt. It is totally weird but they never hurt in training or that 5k race on Saturday but I clearly remember that my arms hurt like hell the last time I raced a 3k indoors. And they hurt today. I think that it is because indoors I "wave" them all around me to balance myself through those tight turns. 
I am indeed getting old. It was a regular NCAA meet but open to the individuals so all the others were college girls and I was the oldest one today:(

OK, end of ramblings. I still have a bike ride to do. Woo-hoo.