Track and Field Blogs - Dom Maio

The 5k is definitely a different experience for me. I have always liked running the faster and middle distance events. I think that's why I liked the 3k so much. It was just short enough that I felt like I could still use some speed and not feel as destroyed as a cross race. Wheaton was the only time I ran it, but it felt good and I've always found 2miles to be the longest I would ever go hard. Maybe that comes from doing 2mile time trials. The wheels and heels 5k was the first time I've ever had my lungs burn a bit after a 5k race. Kind of like the 1500m at the end of the track season. I didn't have that feeling at the Wheaton 3k, but I did feel like going out harder for that race, and I'm sure I could have held another 32 for 200m. Maybe I could have started closer to 70's or held 68's more for that race, but it was a new race to me. I felt like I could have gone harder in the 5k if I had someone to race against, which started to happen at the last .1 of the race. They were just close enough that I knew I better go really hard or they might catch me. I've learned this year that you may only have one or two races the whole season where there are people to challenge you or put you in a different racing situation. Having to race alone is harder, but once you set yourself mentally things are going to happen regardless, which is the hard part of running alone. Sometimes you can use slower runners and then pickup when you don't feel the best mentally or you’re already set in your racing plan that the other runners don't matter. Madison and Nationals were the races I felt challenged at this year. Just trying to catch the guy from Iowa was enough mentally to drop a 30 in the last 200m. NC was different. I was set on what I was going to do and wasn't thinking about anyone else. I know how to go out hard mentally, but the closing speed and running even are things I need to work on. I did more of that this year. These are things I feel come with experience at a specific racing distance or learn from training. I learned to run 59 in the last 400m of an 800m. The second lap is mostly aerobic as most of the lactic acid &oxygen debt?is starting to set in you train you body to deal with the lack of oxygen. 400m runners don't have enough aerobic ability and why the second lap is just distruction because I have yet to see many 400m runner break 2mins that have stepped into the 8. Threshold isn't strong enough for them to handle it. Doing high and low mileage intervals where I had to drop to fast paces?after going at a good pace had the best effect on improving that second lap oxygen debt. In cross after going out hard enough times I knew where and what I had to do to run even. When I negative split at conference I knew where I could run even. Negative splits always look bad to me. It shows me I can improve by running more even. Distance race is more common to see negative splits and is good because there is a point where you know you have to go hard and will run out at some point. Running even with as little drop off as possible and knowing your dead is hard and shows you know you pushed as hard as you could and your mind plays the biggest part in everything you do for that. This will be the hardest part of running the 5k is learning to run a 5k and trying different ways to run. I'm not going to race for awhile now. I want to take some time to train for the next 5k and hope to run it on a week that I back off my mileage. I want to try going out 4:55, stay even around 5:05, and close hard last mile in faster than 4:55 for the next 5k. I think I can do it just by how hard I went at the last race without feeling really destroyed and work on training for it. Try a save that speed for the middle of the race. Theoretically I should have ran a 15:35 from my 2mile time trial, but I stepped up mileage and probably had the time trial, my Sunday workout, and new mileage take some out of me. This is a new race for me to run hard, so I'm very happy with the time, and know there is more to learn. There's always more to learn because running is not exact. There are so many variables interrupt where you want to be and you just need to let the mind know and see that the work you’re putting in is working and recovering your body. No race is perfect or can anyone be perfect in every race, but sometimes you know you’re ready for a perfect magic moment because you trust everything and everyone that got you to that point. That’s when you become dangerous, scare yourself, and make others think you might get hurt. Best thing you can do is feed off that feeling while you have it and learn what happens after it.

I was watching the Paris golden league and it was funny to see that Anna Willard is a 3k runner, but loves the 800m workouts. She ran like 1:58.8 with a crazy last 50m. With all that speed I wonder what her steeple time would be. She even said she’s looking at doing the 1500m. It’s just great to see women 800m and 1500m where 2:00 and 4:00 is being broken. Chris Solinsky interview was great even though he didn’t get shown much in the race. Talking about being tired and still running is a difficult mental state to control before the race and during it. Do you let yourself give up or do you keep pushing even if it’s not going to bring you where you want to be? Clearly you push, be humble, positive about what you did anyway, and keeping yourself set on the goal of the 3k American record never overly exited or arrogant about a win or time. Lagat is like this as well and why I like him. Tyson Gay is probably one of the best examples of humble athlete. Even Bolt is very humble, but he is also very exuberate about running because he likes it so much. Jeremy Warrier is one athlete that of course you must respect his ability, but he is very arrogant. He only cares about winning against other runners, just talks about himself, or what he thinks he deserves regardless of what someone else is doing. He should just stop thinking about winning or Merrit cause he could take out the WR. My problem in the 800m was I knew I would be tired before my race and Matt would be in it. I changed the way I ran the 800m to make him do the work and it worked. I didn’t care that he beat me at conference last year because I set a PR and was very happy with all my races that day. I was just irritated he used me as a personal rabbit so many times and never ran his own race. He could be much faster if he raced more times by himself. It was good to know people gun for you and want to take you out at conference. It means they think you’re good and you have to keep stepping up the paces to improve and not stay content with only winning because they are pushing you to be better. You learn new ways of racing and get better mentally after a loss provided you’re not thinking about just giving up.

I’ve been feeling sick a lot lately. Only really 2 or 3 times while running, but mostly every once and a while when I’m not running. I puked the morning after firecracker and wasn’t feeling good for one of the runs afterwards. Last night after the run I lost it again. My weight is back to 135, but I don’t know about after last night. It just comes up out of nowhere and I feel fine later, so I don’t really know why I’m doing it. I’m not doing any physical harm, besides running, and never had this problem before when running. I found a really good job in New Berlin and applied yesterday followed up on some other jobs as well. I can’t do anything for Tulsa until the beginning of August, so I’m looking for other things until then. I found one other GA position on T&F website I might try. I was given information about one, but it was really old info, I had seen the position before, and it already filled a long time ago. Looking forward to talking with Tim on Monday about MSOE stuff. Mostly because I really don’t understand why Larry does what he does most of the time unless he says why. Guess I call him “Larry” now that I’m going to be working with him. I’ve never called my coaches “coach” even in high school. Usually only when I tell people who don’t know them about them. I’ve only really done it for head coaches who I never worked with much. Our head coach in high school was my coach for 300h and I always referred to him as Chis (short for Chisum). He didn’t like it very much, but he was “coach” when I didn’t work with him anymore.

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