Sunday, June 07, 2009

CA State Meet 3200m. race reflection with Matt Petersen...

As promised, I will post a couple of short interviews with runners from this past CA state track and field meet. I will start with a few of the competitors in the epic boys' 3200m. The first will be Matt Petersen of Davis HS who ran a lifetime best time of 9:01.45 to finish in 11th place.

1) What did you do training wise (day by day) following the SJS final on Friday to the 3200m. final yesterday?
Bill has always been able to peak us perfectly for our big races. We understood that "the hey was in the barn" and all the real work was done. So this week we scaled it back to make sure we were fresh. Saturday and Sunday did not consist of the usual long run but instead just two easy shake out days of 7 miles on Saturday and 5 on Sunday. On Monday Trev and I did a threshold work out within the run. It was 40 min run with 15 mins of threshold pace. Tuesday was a recovery day (30 min) and Wednesday was our last Vo2 max day. At this point in the season we were running at 94 % of goal pace. So we did one mile on the track at 4:34. Thursday and Friday were both easy recoveries. We usually work out on Thursdays but the week before Masters we changed it to Wednesday because Bill could see we were a bit beat up. I felt super fresh for the masters race so we decided to workout on Wednesday again this week.

2) What was your race plan going into the 3200m. final? Where there runners you were focusing on or were you focused on running certain splits?

So we've tried to play the split game the whole year, trying to negative split and going out in a controlled first mile. That for some reason or another just wasn't getting the times down. So going into the state meet, I knew there was going to be a big pack behind Olsen, the plan was to be in this pack and in the mix and not off the back. I payed very little attention to any of the splits, in fact I didn't see a single one. My main focus was to compete, kind of to turn it into more of a cross country race mentality. I knew if I could compete well, the time would come. I thought that 9:03 or 9:04 would get on the podium, but this race was just too deep. I wish that that time could have gotten a podium spot, and it would have almost any other year, but I thrilled about the fact that I was able to drop 15 seconds, especially in my last race for the Blue Devils.

3) Tell us a little how your race progressed from the beginning and how it unfolded as it got into the second 1600m.
So like I said I tried to be in the mix. I got off to a great start and was comfortable from the beginning. I had a good spot, I wasn't boxed and I wasn't running in lane three either. I constantly stayed in about 9th place or so for the whole first mile. I saw no splits so I was constantly checking the position of the other competitors and maintaining contact. I was feeling like my body could respond to anything I asked it to, so I made a slight little move on 6 to get up a few spots, this was when people really started going though. I pressed on 7 and 8, knowing it was the last shot I had in high school running. I found my 2nd gear coming around the turn, but it just so happened that everyone else had theirs too. I still didn't know what time I ran until a few seconds after I found my teammate Trevor.

4) What was the toughest part of the race?

Well once the gun went off, I was fine. My body responded to almost anything I asked it to. Definitely the hardest part for me was before the race. I was just trying to keep my nerves down. Physically, I really started hurting the back stretch of 8, but that's when you're supposed to really feel it.

5) Was there a point this past season when you thought you had a shot of running as fast as you ran yesterday in the 3200?

My goal the whole year has been to break 9. Until last week though, I thought I might be falling short. Last week at masters I felt really smooth and relaxed and ran my second fastest time to date (at the time). After that I knew I was in 9:05 shape but the 9:01 still came as a bit of a surprise when I saw it on the board.

6) Any races coming up for you this summer?

I'm not sure, maybe a few road races with the guys, but I'll have to see what the training is like.

If you have any questions for any of the competitors, please let me know at albertjcaruana@gmail.com or ask them directly in the comment box below.

3 comments:

Wags94101 said...

I believe that he and Collin Jarvis are heading to Cal. Good Luck to Them!

go bears said...

CAL is picking up quite a class

Collin Jarvis (Rancho Buena Vista)
Matt Petersen (Davis Senior)
Cody Schmidt (Redondo Union)
Simon Schmidt (Redondo Union)
Rylan Hunt (Aptos)
Renaud Poizat (Arcadia)
Andres Dias (Loyola)
JP Slater (Loyola)

Timmy Mc said...
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