Filed under: Dealing, Speedwork, The Race | Tags: marathon, off day, running, Speedwork, struggle, Tempo, treadmill
I’ve been doing my intervals on the treadmill. It’s simply easier to keep track of my pace and distance, despite the tedium. Today was a difficult day: three 1600 meter intervals at 9:22 pace with 90 seconds of fast walking in between. In fact, this workout shouldn’t have been much different than last week’s workout.
I don’t know why it’s so much harder for me to run on a treadmill, but by the third 1600, I really needed to be done. I pictured any number of things to get me through it: the marathon, the last mile of Sunday’s 11-miler, people cheering…anything to look away from simulated track on the screen. I did finish, though, and this is encouraging. I’ll need that confidence when I run the race, and knowing that I can keep going even when my legs are leaden and my stomach is squirrelly is comforting.
Food and apparel planning for this weekend’s fun run are already beginning. I’m excited to take a little vacation. Hopefully I can still pull off my old bathing suit.
Filed under: Inspiration, Speedwork, Training Runs | Tags: good day, running, Speedwork
…to acknowledge that I finally timed my five-miler, and I’ve broken 50 minutes! I ran a loop through Brookline today, including some pretty decent hills, in just over 47 minutes. This means I’m finally running sub-10 minute miles.
For me, this is huge. I’m really excited.
Filed under: Dealing, Speedwork | Tags: healing, moving, running, sadness, slow, Speedwork, struggle, Team
…asked a friend from the Team. He was referring to my somewhat pathetic 800m PR. Tonight was my second speed workout. I ran the 400s much slower than last week, but managed to shave seven seconds off the 800. That brings it down to a very penguin-y 341 seconds. I’m starting to realize that I have pretty crappy endurance. This shouldn’t surprise me, as endurance tends to be a weakness in my instrumental playing, as well (yes, I’m a musician, but we’re not getting anymore specific than that). Yes, I can run for a long time, but I cannot, cannot run fast. I really want to, though!
After the run, we stuck around the park, talking and eating pizza and swatting away bugs. The pizza was an enormous relief, as I really wasn’t in the mood to cook tonight. Honestly, I’m not in the mood to do much of anything. I have a mountain of packing to do, and I have to plan the three-day solo drive to my new city. I’m procrastinating like mad and the fact that nothing was supposed to end up this way isn’t helping much.
I wish so badly that I could call you-know-who and tell him everything. You know, the details of my everyday life, things I need to do, will be doing, my general thoughts on things I saw, funny anecdotes, commentary on the news, musings on life and God. It’s a terrible loss. Running helps; it distracts, it bumps my concentration somewhere else, and it’s a good timeline: run the Pig, and when you do, nine months will have passed. And who knows what will happen in nine months?
But running takes up maybe ten percent of each long, long week. I know the deal: keep busy, think about other things, pray, etcetera. The pain will end, they say. You’ll get through it, they say. You’re strong, they say. That last one, now – that last one, I just don’t understand. I wish I were strong. I wish I were.
Filed under: Speedwork, Training Runs | Tags: beginners, fight, good advice, gym class, memories, moving, running, Speedwork, struggle, Team
Ok, so the title of this post is a little facetious. I’m not in any actual pain. I simply want to emphasize that speedwork? &$@!!%&&@!!! HARD! I arrived at the arranged place, and met a couple of people from the Team, along with a few others I hadn’t met before. One of them was eighty-six years old. He’d been running since he was sixty, he said, and had completed seven half marathons. His PR (personal record, in runningspeak) schools mine. We warmed up by running an easy quarter mile loop. Then we got to business.
Today we ran two 400s (meters, that is), one 800, and finished up with another 400. This adds up to about a mile and a quarter. There is a three to five minute break between each dash. The point is not to run as fast as you absolutely can, but to run at about eighty to ninety percent. The goal, eventually, would be to run the equivalent of a six-minute mile. Or less.
Let us keep in mind that throughout elementary, junior high, and high school, I was one of those people we call “Lasties,” in the infamous Gym Class Mile.
The guy with the stopwatch, who I will refer to as Stopwatch Guy for the purposes of anonymity and, well, my utter lack of ability to remember names, counted to three and, as they say, we were off! My first sprint was not bad at all: 90 seconds. It all went downhill from there. Second 400 was 123, and the 800 – oh, the 800! Was 348 seconds. And it schooled me. Readers, if you need a way to forget everything going on in your life, speedwork is the way to go. Three quarters of the way down that 800 stretch and I was grunting – no, moaning – to be done. The humid air seared my lungs, my arms whirled at my sides, and I’m pretty sure that my facial expression could have matched the contorted grimaces of some unfortunate soul subjected to a Medieval thumbscrew. All I could do was think about what Stopwatch Guy said:
“The point of the 800 is to fight! Too many people give up before the end of a race. Keep your head down, keep your arms pumping, keep your knees up, and fight, fight, fight!”
So I fought. And for those three hundred and forty-eight seconds, I didn’t think about my broken heart, I didn’t think about my loneliness, I didn’t think about the future, and how wide open and scary it was. Only the present mattered, and the present was the struggle of the physical body against itself, the struggle to get simply, beautifully, from one point to another. To fight.
After the last 400, we did a warm-down mile around the park, then sat around in the dusk, stretching and talking. These were some nice folks, and it made me almost sorry that I’m leaving this town in two weeks.
Tomorrow we’re back to normal: four miles with the Team. After this workout, it’ll either be ridiculously easy or completely brutal. I’ll let you know.
Filed under: Dealing, Speedwork, Training Runs | Tags: beginners, dreams, running, slow, Speedwork, struggle, Team
I woke up at an unbelievable 9:45 AM this morning. Not that I slept well; I woke up with my heart slamming in my chest at quite an unhealthy rate. It seems my brain had decided that last night would be a good time to explore the angry fantasies which were, apparently, buried in my subconscious. Last night I argued with, fought, punched, and slapped about five people. Yes, including him. You would think this would be satisfying, but it really wasn’t. I got out of bed feeling drained and crappy, with a couple of unsightly bags under my eyes.
Thank heaven the phone rang at that moment, jarring me out of my stupor. It had the area code of my new city, and it was a job offer. Halleluyah.
This evening begins a new addition to my training: Speedwork. One of my Team members informed me that a local running club was holding “Speedwork for Beginners,” at 6 PM on Mondays. I’m excited to start a previously unfamiliar facet of running. I mean, let’s face it, folks: I’m slow. I need to pick up the pace, and I was dreading the day I’d have to figure out how to do it myself. Now I won’t have to!
Check back this evening for a workout update.
