Track and Field Blogs - Brendan OKeefe

Alright this is a little catch-up blog. It’s been quite a while since I last wrote. The indoor season has come and gone and I've spent time in Seattle, Boston and Florida. Now I’m back in the mountains preparing for the main focus of the year; the outdoor season and the Olympic trials.

My indoor season was fair. I had a lot of minor problems and was unable to put in the string of training needed to race spectacularly. The good thing is that the season's races didn’t really matter and the entire time I stayed on my feet. I may have missed workouts here and there but I missed very few days running. My base is better then ever.

I say fair and was quite disappointed in the races, but I still ran 4:02 for a mile and finished 10th at indoor nationals in 3:44. Two years ago I would have been pumped. Outdoor, I would say has already started on a better note. My lingering bronchitis is gone and a recent chiropractor adjustment has done wonders for the tightness in my hips and hamstring. With these inline, I headed down to Raleigh last week for my first 5k in seven years.

The race had a range of athletes, from milers to marathoners, all shooting for that semi-elusive 14-minute barrier and a good opening effort. There was a pacer through 2k rolling even 67s. I stayed in second or third for two thirds of the race in a pack of 22 that was fairly tight. We reached 2 miles in 8:57. I felt incredible. I was already doing the math in my head as to what I would run if I dropped a 4:15 for the last mile. 200 meters went by and everything changed. A side stitch hit, a move was made and I fell apart. Looking back, experience was a big player. Things had been going so well and when it started to hurt I felt like I had forever to go. Really I just had to gut out the next 800, latch onto someone’s jersey, then let the final 800 take care of itself. I slid to 69/70 pace for a few laps, then rallied with a 63 for a 43 second PR of 14:05.

Having trained through this race and really treated it like a tempo, I’m relatively happy about it. It shows my base is where it needs to be for a good 1500.

Yes, the magical season of the 3 and 3/4ths lapper is upon me. I have a 1500 this weekend in South Carolina, then the big push for the Trials A Standard in Oregon and Stanford. These are the races I’ve waited for all year. I can feel the excitement building as the weather warms.

It’s a time when I need to direct all my attention to running, drills, sleep and eating right. I have a lot of other interests in the art and music world, but its all running right now. That and I need some serious work on my guitar hero skills if I’m ever going to duel Ryan on expert.