Monday, December 28, 2009

Med Ball and Body Building Series

Here is our Med Ball and Body Building Series. Typically we use this series as well as our core strength series on general days. These type of lifts are not keys to performance but help the body recover from our neuromuscular days (high intensity) these general strength series elicit a growth hormone responce which helps repair and rebuild damaged tissue. Here is a list of the other series I am planning on posting: Weight Room Series, Core Stability Series, Pre Practice Series, Multi Throw Series, Multi Jump Series, Recovery and Regeneration Series.


Core Strength Series

SO we started filming all of our exercises and thought I would start posting them here:

First off, is our Core Strength Series... we typically never do all of these usually just pick 3 or 4 on any given day. Really the way to improve core strength is through weight lifting and running.

Some Fun with new camera

Here is a plyo ball hitting the ground at 1000 frames per second... quality goes down the faster the camera goes...



Here is Armando Jumping Rope at 210 Frames per second



Here is an up close shot of Armandos feet while jumping rope at 1000 frames per second. Pretty cool, you can see that he needs to keep his toes up on his landing. Plus you can just see the power of the achilles tendon.




Armando Trying a push up with a clap behind his back, swing and a miss!



Ill post some other videos later... can't wait to get some actualy track events on it!

Thursday, December 24, 2009

My favorite coaching rule

Recently I read a quote that said "Did you invest as much in your career as you did in your car this past year?" I loved that and wanted to repeat that here, I couldn't agree more.

Those who have been around me a few years will notice that no two season are the same, I think we have had a different warm up every year. I try to analyze the previous season remove the things I didn't think helped and keep the things I did think helped. Then I look for new things to try out, some work some don't. There is alot of trial and error. You would be bummed if you ran the same speed in middle school as you did in your senior year of college. I am the same way, in ten years from now I hope I will be a better coach. Anyways, I never planned on being a coach, if I did I would have asked alot more questions when I was an athlete, I was more of the "blindly follow whatever your coach says" type of athlete. Anyways my first year was basically me just assigning the athletes the exact same workouts I had to do. MOnday was tough, Tuesday was technique, Wednesday was speed, Thursday Technique, Friday was tempo, Saturday was meet. The problem was when I wanted to adjust things I couldn't because I didn't know why did them just what we did.

Anyways after my first season, I got my paycheck and it wasn't much and I had bills I needed to pay, but I also felt like I should reward myself for my first season being done. It felt like if i used it for bills, I was coaching for the wrong reasons or if i used it to buy a video game that would be no good to. It just seemed right to use it to make me a better coach. So I went on to amazon and bought 4 or 5 books on track and field. The next year after coaching I used my money to take some classes at Foothill in exercise physiology. Those classes got me interested in exercise physiology and I ended up going to SJSU and getting my Masters in the subject. (there is no way this would have happened if I didn't go to foothill) now I am teaching classes at SJSU. Every year I try to challenge myself to spend as much of my coaching paycheck on making me a better coach. Again following with the theme of lifelong learning. One year I went to chicago for a week long coaching education program sponsored by USATF . It was made to certify me to coach the jumps at the NCAA level. It cost 400 dollars more than my paycheck that year, I still felt it was worth it. Over the years I have used it to buy over 80 books 15 DVDs, our team website (plus the web design class I took at foothill). A couple weeks I got my football paycheck and I used it to buy a high speed camera, I probably wouldn't have been able to justify that purchase to myself with out this rule. The rest of the paycheck I used to buy over 30 hours of video from top coaches in distance, jumps and sprints and throws.

The point of this post isn't to brag about all the stuff I bought but it is just to say no matter what field you go into, never stop trying to imporve, don't be sataisfied. If you don't like your job invest in things taht will help you get a new job.

Merry Christmas!

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Goals this year

I know we are going to have a wide range of goals this year.

We have some outcome goals: I know Erika just wants to make CCS finals this year, Stephanie is looking to make it to state)
We have some performance goals: Pauline is hoping to run a 57 in the 400. I am going to want a huge amount of PRs.

I just want to remind everyone about the 3rd type of goal, process goals. Process goals are more about the technique. For example a process goal for Erika would be "I don't want to come out so low from the blocks" actually "I want to come out at a 45 degree angle" is a better way to phrase that. It would be Lauren saying "I want the second phase of my triple jump to be at least 30% of my total distance". Chelsie might say "I want my first lap to be my slowest of the race". Stuff like that Erika. Chelsie or Lauren may lose their events (outcome) and may not get PRs (performance) but their is still an important thing being accomplished. Part of the difficulty of process goals is you have to underdstand your event.

I don't think any type is anymore important, (I have my personal preferences about which are the best) but if going to state motivates Stephanie to work hard and improve then it did its job.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

New Blog

Hey guys,

So I created a new blog which will be a place for me to write down my thoughts on whatever I am thinking of related coaching etc... I figured it was best to leave this blog for only Live Oak related things (i.e. Meet results and stuff)

For me personally, writting things out is the only real way I can digest information, just reading it or hearing it doesn't work which is why I took advantage of this blog to get my thoughts down. Anyways if you are interested it is called "My Brain's Colon" (get it? its my way to digest information) My goal is to post everyday. So far I am 3 for 3.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Next Monday

Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving, I definitely did. Ate a ton thursday, played some ultimate frisbee Friday and then ate a bunch more. So Monday is the start of offseason training, I know I just made a blog entry wondering if we even needed it. It should be known that it is completely volentary and individuals who don't go won't be punished (don't even know how I could punish someone, it's track I can't reduce someones playing time)

The main goal is to keep people who wouldn't be active otherwise... active. We won't do any type of specific training, no block starts, no long jump approaches. It will be working on general fitness. There will only be 3 componants of our training: Strength, Conditioning, Flexibility. At the end of it I would like to think you are prepared for any sport rather than just for track. Anyways it starts Monday, Nov 30 at 3:20pm at the Live Oak Track

Fall Sports Round Up

Well now that all the fall sports seasons are finished we are on to winter. Soccer, Wrestling and Basketball are starting up. I don't think we have nearly as many athletes in winter sports, off the top of my head I think it is just Leach in basketball, Kenny in wrestling, and Alex Ukanwa in soccer. SO make sure you guys go out and support your track teammates in their other sports.

Before moving on though just wanted to wrap up the seasons of our fall sports athletes.

Cross Country (Adam Groen, Pauline Olsen, Chelsie Faulk)

As I mentioned before all three of our athletes made the CCS Meet. They would be the first to tell you it did not go as well as they had hoped. That being said it was a great season for all three. I think Chelsie and Adam took a couple steps forward this year and Pauline accomplished her goal of staying in shape and getting a good base aerobic fitness down before the beginning of the season.

Field Hockey (Lauren Drewniany, Catherine Sparling, Erika Rodriguez)

Well after I put the blog jinx on them by mentioning there chances of making the CCS Playoffs they ended up coming up just short, with a loss to Leigh and a forfeit win against Homestead. I don't think I ever saw a complete game but I did end up seeing like 12 halves, haha. It was really enjoyable seeing these other sides of athletes. Catherine making juke moves against defenders, Erika bringing a ton of energy to the game (I guess that is nothing new) and Lauren being a leader out on the field. Speaking of Lauren she came away with some recognition at the end of the season, being named First team all-league, Junior of the yeat and Non-Glam Player of the year.

Football (Lots, haha)

Like cross country and field hockey another tough ending to the season. They ended up making the playoffs and played against Terra Nova, the number one seed, in the first round. They had a 24-7 lead in the 3rd quarter but couldn't quite hold on and lost 28-24. The biggest thing about this team had to be it resiliancy. They started the season 0-4 and had tough losses to rivals (Gilroy/Sobrato) thet battled back though to beat Oak Grove, make the playoffs and give the number 1 seed all they could handle. Lots of positives to take out of this season. Also because I am a football coach I already know that some on the track athletes on the team will be also getting some awards and recognition but since we haven't had the awards banquet yet I am going to have to keep it to myself.

Great Job All, Hopefully next fall we will have even more athletes competing in fall sports.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Even More? YES it's true! haha

Here is another website with alot more of a science based background than the typical websites that are trying to sell something....

http://www.ifi.ku.dk/english/communication/previous_arrangements/consensus/program_video/

Free bit of advice that is worth every penny: People that take something simple and make it complex are trying to sell you something, People that take something complex and make it simple are trying to teach you something.

This is something I have learned looking through endless websites and research. I guess there is such thing as over simplifying but in general this is what I have found to be true.

More

Keeping with my current theme of lifetime learning I just wanted to pass along a website that I love looking at. IT has speeches from the TED conference which rountinely challenges the way things are and gives me new ways to think about problems.

www.ted.com

Friday, November 13, 2009

Offseason training?

Do we need it?

Up until 6 months ago I would have said yes... now being in my "questioning everything" phase. I really do wonder about it.

Erika qualified for 4 different CCS events last year, due to an injury she didn't start running until February (and we had to reduce her workload when she came back) Hard to argue she didn't have enough time. Tolson did come out for Offseason training and was able to make it to CCS and take a good 4 seconds off his 400 time. Mark always did offseason training, Courtney did absolutely nothing in between seasons. Both were very successful.

Is year around training one of those "imbred thoughts" that has been passed along? The people who do offseason tend to be the most dedicated (willing to work when it isn't mandatory or required) that probably has a bigger role on thier success then offseason training. (At the very least it plays a role)

THe logic of offseason training is the better shape you are in the more you can do, if you are out of shape it will be hard to do more than a 3*150s, but someone in shape can do 6*150s. They can do more, meaning they can get in better shape meaning they will perform better.

Maybe the truth is, that difference early in the year 3 150s vs 6 150s ends up being 14 150s vs 17 150s at the end of the year which isn't as big of a difference. Or maybe after you get to the point were you can do 10 150s there is no marginal benefit of going above that.

I am still having trouble thinking there is no benefit to offseason training (shows how tough it is to get rid of ingrained thought) I think what we will do this offseason is more related to supplementry training. (Weight room, aerobic, medicine ball work)

Coaching Part 1

So one of the big problems with coaching is there is a lot of imbreeding (metaphorically speaking) "I had to do this so now you do." I am no different, you guys do alot of workouts that I had to do in college at CMC (500 bds, in&out 200s (old style, not the kind where we actually run to in&out), 50 sec repeats, hammerstrides) Those all came from Claremont. My feeling was we won 4 conference titles in my 4 years there (they are going for 19 straight conference titles next spring) it should be good enough for you. While studying other coaching styles in track I have discovered that at CMC we took alot of our workouts from Jim Bush (coach at UCLA for many years). SO at LO we are doing similar workouts to UCLA in the 70's and 80s.

So why is this a problem?

Well most track coaches look to other track programs for ideas and change but say I talk to someone who follows Bud Winter's (SJSU head coach during speed city) approach that seems like a good idea except Jim Bush was influenced by Bud Winter. WHen you start to study track you realize there is so much imbreeeding of ideas that horrible ideas are reinforced. I have completely stopped looking at track people for references, I no longer ask my old college coach for training advise, I don't read books by track coaches period, and I don't ask other coaches what they do. I cut track off about 2 years ago. Every book or resourse I use is from people outside the sport. I read what athletic trainers are saying (they say static stretching hurts perfromance when done before expolsive activities) so we cut it out of our program. Mark on the other hand is training at West Valley college and they still static stretch. Why? because Bud Winter used to have his athletes do it. His coaches blindly follow what Bud Winter did, the other coaches they run into reinforce it because they were influence by someone who was influenced by Bud Winter too. At the end of the day it seems like 'hey 1000s of coaches are doing this it must be right', turns out 1 person actually decided to do it, everyone else just followed.

Now I read blogs by strength coaches. Books by psychologists. I find as much info as I can and hope there isn't a single mention of track in it. That leaves it up to me to interpret how it fits or doesn't fit into our program. I also like reading things totally not related to sports and find connections, Seth Godin has a great blog about Marketing that I have found with alot of parallels to track. (I even bought his book "The dip" which has no sports mention whatsoever but felt to me like he was talking precisely about track). Malcolm Gladwell's books are awesome for athletes none are about sports.

If you are wondering why is this important? My response is look at the results of the 84 olympics in LA and 08 Olympics in Beijing besides Bolt is their much of a difference? Our sport is stagnating, why because coaches are still doing the exact same things they did in the 60's today. We need some fresh DNA in the track gene pool, way to much imbreeding.

Here is a quote from Seth Godins blog today: "One study found that when confronted with a patient with back pain, surgeons prescribed surgery, physical therapists thought that therapy was indicated and yes, acupuncturists were sure needles were the answer. Across the entire universe of patients, the single largest indicator of treatment wasn't symptoms or patient background, it was the background of the doctor." In our sport almost all the doctors have the same background. How can we advance?

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Sorry

What was I thinking talking about ccs qualifiers before seasons ended. I jinxed it big time. Unfortunantly field hockey had a little bit of a rough ending. They were eliminated after playing the first place team on Wed, then they team they were supposed to play Thursday didn't show up. (they thought the game was Friday)

That being said I really did enjoy watching our track stars in their other sports. Track year around is probably one of the worst things you can do (and I am a track coach). I really do encourage you all to try out different sports (as long as it isn't in the spring, haha. Actually if their is a sport you enjoy more then track definitely do it).

A little tangent but the abruptness of the ending for the field hockey team had me thinking about this. In most sports your season ending is usually a disappointment, except for teams that win championships, it either ends in a loss or if it ends in a win it is on a team that didn't make playoffs. That is a very small percentage who have their season end positively. I know it is kind of a generalization but every last game I had, I went into it hoping it wouldn't be my last.

This is just another reason why I think track is so great and the fact that we can have PRs is awesome. You could have a long jump competition of 16 people and only 8 advance, but you can have all 16 walk away happy if they PR. Now people in team sports can feel this way too even after a loss if they have a caoch who has done a good job of putting the season into perspective. I just think track has an advantage becasue it would be more of a quantitative positive then a qualitative positive. "I wnet in with a PR of 20' and I jumped 21' " That is as tangible of a result as "I qualified"

Anyways congrats to Erika, Lauren and Catherine on a great season. I am biased but the way I saw it was Catherine was in charge of the offensive end, Lauren the defensive end and Erika was the bridge between them.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

CCS Qualifiers?

Time for another update on our track athletes in fall sports. CCS is coming around in the next 2 weeks and we might have every track athlete make CCS. We are 3 for 3 so far:

Cross Country (Adam Groen, Chelsie Faulk, Pauline Olsen):

Monday was the BVAL Championships and all three track runners qualified for CCS. The girls, as a team, qualified by finishing 10th wth Pauline Olsen getting 21:56 and Chelsie Faulk getting a 22:23. The boys didn't have enough runners to have a team but Adam Groen was able to qualify as an individual by running a PR of 18:03.

Field Hockey (Erika Rodriguez, Catherine Sparling, Lauren Drewniany):

This is the final week of field hockey the girls are 6-3-3 and have 2 games left. The top 3 teams make CCS and right now they are just outside the cutoff. Their last home game is Thursday at 2:45 against the team that is just ahead of them.

Football: (Jacob Montoya, Artie Valencia, Kean Viziry, Kenny Lee, Dominic Leach, David Pelz)

Like field hockey they only have 2 games left. The first is against Leland at home this week and then next week at Santa Teresa. Also like field hockey they are right at the cutoff of making CCS. They only need to win 1 of the last 2 games to make the CCS Playoffs.

So if the FH girls go 2-0 this week and the football team wins 1 of its final 2 games, we will have a clean sweep of CCS Qualifiers.

Some action shots coming soon...

Monday, October 19, 2009

Announcement

I added a track meet this year, we will have a preseason meet against Gilroy this year on March 4th. Christopher high School (new school in gilroy) and Sobrato will be attending along with Gilroy (naturally). Another chance for us to get use to the site of CCS Semifinals and Finals. Man I really can't wait for this season to start...February First!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Rain

Not a fan.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Lifetime Learning

When you tie a reward to something, you strip away its intrinsic value, this is an idea in psychology. You tell your son I will give you 20 dollars for every A you get, sure it may motivate them but now the A has extrinsic value and the research shows that intrinsic value can't last in that situation. The student will never be happy just to get an A. Take away the 20 dollars and now there is no value left, (why should I do this for free?) You can see this alot in professional athletics. We all do this though, I give out reece's after each of you get a PR. The accomplishment itself should be enough. (In my defense, It is more to recognize the athlete than to motivate them. Viz being the only exception haha)

This is my long way of getting to my point, once school is over (college or High school) that doesn't mean learning is over. I understand the point of having tests, it is the (not best) but easiest way to see if the person has learned what they needed to from the class. There is also a problem with people only studying things because they will be tested on it. Now sometimes you are forced to take a class you are not interested in, and it is tough to study. However I recommend trying to actively enjoy learning. I mean increasing your knowledge should be something you enjoy, not something you feel forced to do.

It is not easy to do. I couldn't do it, after I graduated college I was done learning. When I started coaching I realized that I had a deficit of knowledge in exercise physiology and rather than being able to just research and find the information I needed I had to go back to school because I could only really learn when I was being forced to do it for a grade. The good news is my second time through college I was completely engaged I learned for the information not for the test. Now that I have my Masters degree, I am still looking for information, still researching and becoming a lifetime learner.

What I am really looking into for the upcoming year is the kinetic chain of the body. Things like when you have an injury look for a weak synergist. Alot of times with injuries we treat the body part of the injury. If you have a leak on your roof, it shows up with a stain on the wall. Well treating the wall will not fix anything, and sadly that is what happens ALOT. I am really trying to understand the connections within the body. If you have pain in the upperback, stretching the muscles of the chest may be way more effective then working on the spot where there is pain. Really excited to learn more about this and i will definitely post some of the things I find out.

My take home message: Learn for the information not for a test. Try to enjoy it, becasue it is a great skill and there is so much information out there. Alot of people don't.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Muscle Contraction Basics (part I)

How do muscles contact? Mark is studying this so I figued I would make a blog post about it. One of the lectures I give in my class at SJSU is on this topic so luckily I already have some figures I can post.


Muscle Contraction

First some quick descriptions so the process flows a little better.

Electrical Impule & T-Tubules
When you decide that you want to contract a muscle, lets say the bicep. A small electrical signal leaves the brain and travels down motor neurons to that muscle. Within the muscle there is a whole lot more than just muscle fibers. Namely T-Tubules (or transverse tubules) when the electrical signal reaches the muscle it causes the T-Tubules to release Calcium throughout the muscle.

Actin & Myosin
These are the two primary contraction filiments actin being the thin filiment and Myosin being the thick filiment. They overlap each other and then muscle is contracted the myosin filiments (green) attatch to the actin filiments (red) and pull. Making the z-disc (I call them Z-lines) closer together.











Now this is microscopic movement but imagine many of these doing this, your muscle will become shorter which pulls on the tendons attatched to the bicep and causes your hand to move closer to your shoulder (bicep curl)





Crossbridges

So how does myosin attatch to actin? Check out the figure below. As you can see actin has this intertwining pearl like structure. Wrapped up with it is tropomyosin(pink band) which blocks the area that myosin can bind to actin (binding sites) when a muscle is relaxed tropomyosin prevents myosin from binding to actin (which is what it wants to do). When the t-tubules release calcium throughout the muscle the calcium will bind with troponin (yellow molecule attatched to tropomyosin). The calcium causes troponin to be pulled off the actin, which pulls the tropomyosin band off as well and exposes the binding sites. Now Myosin can attatch to actin and we can have muscle contraction.




Muscle contraction
When Myosin attatches to actin that is called a crossbridge. Within the myosin head there are 2 important things ATP (our energy source) and Myosin ATPase (enzyme that breaks down ATP) when the enrgy is used it causes the power stroke. Basically the head moves toward the center of the muscle which pulls the actin and causes the over lap to occur (and muscle contraction) The only way myosin will release the actin is when ATP reenters the head. So very simply the process is this.
1) Electical Impulse
2) Calcium caused to release from T Tubules
3) Calcium Binds to troponin which exposes binding site and allows cross bridge to be formed
4) ATP is used which causes the "power stroke" of myosin (muscle shortens)
5) New ATP enters myosin and crossbridge is released.

If calcium is still present (meaning your brain is still telling the muscle to crotract) the myosin head will grab the actin again and pull. Think of it as climbing the actin rope until the muscle is totally contracted. If the brain no longer wants the muscle to contract the calcium will be pumped out of the muscle. The binding sites will be covered by tropomyosin again and the muscle will return to its original length.

Rigor Mortis: You know how after someone dies the bodies get all stiff well the reason for this can be explained with the process of muscle contraction. Basically The body starts to deteriorate and calcium leaks into the muscle (no electrical signal needed) it attatches to troponin and that casues the cross bridge to be formed. The ATP is used and the muscle contracts, except that because the person is dead, no new ATP is rebuilt and the bond is never released to the muscle is just stuck in a contracted position. (until it deteriorates some more)

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

hmmm....

Big gulps, huh? Well once i decided to restart this I knew it would be important to post every couple days on this thing. I think what I will do is post whatever is on my mind. So in honor of cross country season here is some talk about oxygen debt.

So physiologically oxygen is basically free energy, it has no cost to us. We can burn, for all intents and purposes, a limitless amount of fat (and some carbs) and when combined with oxygen create energy. Now it is a long process (takes about 2 minutes to get going) so if you need energy quickly you will not be able to use oxygen quickly enough. Your body has other energy sources however they are limited.

Alternative 1: Creatine Phosphate

Basically a molecule of creatine phosphate is held together by energy, you have alot of these molecules in your muscle (also important reason to be a meat eater) When this molecule is broken apart that energy is realeased and you use it. The only problem is these bonds can not be rebuilt until you stop moving so after 10 seconds of all out activity you will burn through most of this fuel source. Since this is such a simple process, (1 step: separate creatine from phosphate) you can get energy from this quick.

Alternative 2: Lactic Acid

Your body can also burn carbs faster if it does it without oxygen, however, the lack of oxygen creates an excess of acid (acid is just hydrogen molecules, if there is oxygen they can combine to make water, H2O) Without oxygen acid builds up and there is a burning in the muscles, electircla impulses don't travel correctly causing a lack of coordination etc. You start to feel this after about 40 seconds of all out activity.


I love analogies so I will try to make one that works here. The energy you use from only the aerobic system is your salary, the better in shape you are (harder you work) the larger your salary is. You can think of the energy demand of a workout as your expenses. If you make 500 dollars and your expenses are 500 dollars or less there are no problems. If you can run a 6 minute mile and you run at that speed or slower you are fine. Now if you decide to get a cell phone and now your expenses go up to 550 and since your salary isn't enough you need to go to the ATM and take out 50 dollars from your savings account (Creatine phosphate). So our person can run a 6:00 mile no problem but they run at 5:30 speed now to go faster. In order to get that extra energy they use some create phosphate they have stored. (savings account) however it is limited and once it is gone it will not replenish, until you work some overtime. (eat meat) Now say you decide to get premium cable too so now your expenses go up from $550 to $650 and dipping into your savings in not enough. Now you need to take out a loan unfortunantly it will need to be paid back with interest. Back to our runner think of them now running at 5:00 min/mile pace which has a higher energy demand. Now the body needs to start breaking down carbs without oxygen to get energy, even though it creates acid (interest) and anything created will need to be paid back.

When we sprint all out we go too fast to use the oxygen system but after we finish we are breathing hard... why? Remember the aerobic system is free energy so when we finish we use that system to create energy and that energy is used not for running but to rebuild creatine phosphate molecules and buffer out the lactic acid. (when we run out of money we need to go back to work)

SO back to our runner one last time: They can run a 6 min/mile no prob. (90 second laps) If they run 85 second first lap they created 5 seconds of oxygen debt. Meaning those 5 seonds were gained by using some cretine phosphate and making acid. If on the second lap they also run an 85 now they have 10 seconds of oxygen debt and guess what your body can rebuild creatine phosphate or clear out the acid until you stop (go back to work to re supply your bank account and pay back your loan) by the third lap you run a 95 becasue your body needed to use the extra seconds to clear some of the acid. Unfortunantly you can't get rid of the creatine until you stop. Then on your last lap you push your self and run a 92 and feel horrible afterward becasue you are in oxygen depb, your body is breating really hard to create energy that will rebuilt creatine phosphate and buffer out the acid.

This unfortunantly is how a lot of runners run. They think they aren't running right unless they ae pushing themselves. That sample runner ended up with a 5:57.

A more ideal strategy is go out at 90 for the first 2 laps sure you are now 10 seconds behind the first runner, but you are only half way through the race you still have all of your creatine phosphate and no acid built up (most runners can't handle feeling this good so they go too fast) now you can put in a 87 second lap and on the last lap run a 80. This will give you a 5:47. The only real difference is this when you went fast and created acid in the first race you had to pay it back in lap 3 (which is during the race, not a good thing) in the second race you went fast in lap 4 and so you had to pay back the acid after the race was over. (plenty of time to do it then)

Sorry taht this was way longer then I expected