Michael Letendre Athlete Blog
Check out MaineTrackXC's winter athlete blogger Michael Letendre's first blog. Letendre is a senior distance runner & captain for Lewiston High School. Michael has personal best 2:11.2 for 800m & 4:56.4 for the Mile. Follow Michael as he chronicles the 2011-2012 indoor season.
Waking up the day after a meet once you’ve had at least ten hours of sleep is a wonderful experience. Especially when Sunday is my only day of the week to kick back and relax after a tough week of running. It was some time within the last two weeks that something in my mind just kind of clicked. I’ve had this mind set of strong determination wash over me and I think one can see that in my training now. Up until yesterday I hadn’t PR’d since my sophomore year and I think now is as good a time as any; more like about time.
The day of the meet started as any other; only earlier. The toughest part about any meet day is rolling myself (sometimes literally) out of my warm, comfy bed to hop in the shower and get to the bus. Something about that Saturday morning was special. I had Lucky Charms for breakfast which I never eat and despite it being dairy with the milk I just had to eat them; they turned out to be quite the charm. I was actually running a little late and if my teammate hadn’t driven by me on my walk to the bus I probably would have missed the bus.
The funny thing about the meet was that it was located at Colby College which from my knowledge gets a lot of dislike from a lot of athletes; Colby is not disliked because of the quality of the facility (which is fine) but because of the oddly shaped track in comparison to other indoor tracks. The track is 220 yards in length with shaper than usual turns and longer than usual straights. For a sprinter the sharper turns could have a minor effect on their performance if they’re not used to leaning into turn but for a distance runner I find the longer straights to work in my favor. I personally love running at Colby; my last two one-mile personal records have come while running at Colby. The whole meet I was so set on remembering each lap’s split to run a 4:50 mile. I actually planned on wearing a watch (which I never do) to keep track of my splits but I never ended up looking at my watch during the race. Even though I didn’t look at the watch I feel it was good for me to have the mind set of using a watch because it helped me stay focused on the race. Another really lucky event for me at the meet was when my coach went to check on the order of athletes running the mile and saw that I was placed in the first heat (typically the slower heat) instead of being placed in the faster heat with the rest of my teammates. My coach had asked the officials to have me moved to the second heat which they agreed to and I couldn’t be more appreciate of their generosity. Lewiston was running seven milers in a heat with a total of twelve runners. When a team runs seven guys under five minutes in the mile that’s intimidating to other runners.
On the line of the mile I was positioned in the second row of runners so I knew I would have to take it out faster than I usually take it out in order to secure a position I could work from. The gun went off and I crashed through the runners in front of me. One of the benefits of having so many teammates in the same race as you is that you can work together. A great example of this is coming around the bend of the first turn my teammate Kevin Lavertu needed space to cut in to the inner lane and with me right behind him I was able to create that space needed for him to work his way back on the inner lane without too much work. Kevin Lavertu is my personal favorite teammate to pace off of as he isn’t afraid to take a race out strong and fight to the finish. Around lap seven is when I would normally pass Kevin for the finish but I was really proud of him that he didn’t slow the pace and held the lead against me until the end of the race. I was aiming for a finish around 4:50 which would have been a 16 second PR for the season but with a finish at 4:55.04 I couldn’t be upset with an overall PR (for both indoor and outdoor) by about one second in the mile. It’s not a huge improvement at first glance but seeing that my last track season was a year ago back in indoor of my junior year I feel great knowing that I’m back where I should be and front this point on it’s all improvement. When you take a closer look at the time you might realize that my mile time is only .04 seconds off qualifying for the state meet. When you take a moment and think about how little four hundredths of a second really is you realize I could have tripped at the finish and propelled my body forward enough to break 4:55. This certainly isn’t a down side seeing that now I’m even more determined to perform well at the KVAC regional meet to qualify for states and ultimately run a sub 4:50 mile.
The meet was awesome; I loved it. I’m really excited for the KVAC regional meet in two weeks. Lewiston is definitely an underdog team in the meet with strong schools like Brunswick and Mt. Ararat but from the improvements I’ve seen come out of Lewiston over these last few weeks I think it’ll definitely be an exciting meet to watch unfold. I see the top three teams’ final scores being within just a few points of each other and being a really close meet. Best of luck to all teams in this week of practice and the final regular season meet.
-Michael