The Lou: Lou Ristaino 4 x 1600 relay

It was a long wait for the relay to start
Photo by Thomas Cole

Race: Lou's 4 x 1600 Relay - BU Mini-Meet #2
Place: BU Indoor Track
Goal Time: me - 5:30; team: 21:15
Actual Time: 5:30.79 (PR!!); 21:27

After the Mass Ave Mile back in 2012, Bradley and I talked about the anomaly of the mile.

There's a big problem with the mile for distance runners.  If your shortest race is 5 kilometers, the mile feels like a sprint.  It's not...

Yet there's a problem for sprinters.  If your longest race is 400 meters, the mile feels like a marathon. It's not...

This year was the 14th annual Lou's 4x1600.  I started to get a team together earlier in the year.  And then they scheduled it for 2 days after Christmas.  With Maple Leaf Joe in Toronto and Brendan in the Bronx watching BC blow a 14 point lead and then miss an extra point in OT, I needed to grab new guys.  Bradley and Joe were only too happy to run it.

After sitting around the whole BU meet (including Joe actually running in the Mile), we were ready around 2:30 to run.  I was running first.

Now as Bradley described, it's not a sprint.  So, I decided that I would drop into last place of the 6 teams at the start and just follow for the first lap.  That way I wouldn't run too fast in the first lap - as one is prone to do in the mile.  BUT, I did...

Despite staying in last and just hanging out in the back of the group, my goal of 41-42 second laps, I ran the first 200 in 34 seconds. blerg.

Klucznik starting the mile
photo by Thomas Cole

Well, I found a groove for a while before the inevitable slowing down around lap 6.  Joe told me as I ran by: "These next two laps are when you have to work."  In retrospect, I understand that better now than I did three and a half minutes into a mile.  I probably could have put myself into another layer of pain, but I didn't...

With one lap to go, I was far off the back and had already been lapped by two different teams.  I managed to run right under 39 seconds for that last lap.  I handed off to Mark for a 5 second PR from this year's Club Cup 26x1 Relay back in June.

Mark ran a 5:44 - 4 seconds faster than the 26x1
Bradley ran a 5:10 - 21 seconds faster than the 26x1
Joe ran a 5:00.7 - while slower than the 26x1, it was his second mile of the day and in the first one he destroyed his 26x1 time with a 4:47!

Liz - en route to her incredible mile time.
Photo by Thomas Cole

Jen Rapaport ran the 3000 and Mile - 11:33 / 5:47
Chriz Klucznik ran the mile - 4:44
Liz Cooney ran the third fastest mile in her age group in the NATION this year! - 6:13