Tonight's track session was really tough. I'm in the fast group based on my mile time, and our group is six or eight people. The other group is much larger, perhaps two dozen or so, and is for people at an 8:00 mile or higher. This session was again just to gauge times and get a baseline, this time for 220 yards, 440 yards, 880 yards, and mile.
Some in my group were doing a Disney event this weekend (half marathon or marathon) and thus they didn't want to run hard. Very understandable! So two people took off to run some easy miles, and the coach decided to drop the 880 and do it another time.
We lined up for the 220, and took off. Midway through I got caught up in chasing the girl in front of me and poured it on as hard as I could to catch and pass her. Meanwhile, I forgot I also had to run a 440 and mile afterwards so this was a huge strategic error, especially coming off a multi-week rest period. I did the 220 in 35 seconds, and outsprinted her, but it hurt. Later, I talked to her and found out she is on her middle school's track team - she is in 8th grade! I need to get her name so when she's in the olympics I can brag about how I beat her in a 220 yard training session years ago. ;)
The effort on the 220 left me drained for the 440, which I was able to crank out in 1:22, significantly off the pace. That in turn left me really hurting for the mile, which I was able to do with great difficulty in 7:50. When I say great difficulty I mean ragged breathing, side stitches, elevated heart rate way beyond what it should be for a 7:50 mile.
For 1 and 3/4s miles run total, it was tough. I need to get my base mileage going again to run this hard.
Speaking of that, I'm curious what kind of workouts the other group is doing. While I do want to get faster, I have fairly modest goals. I need to leave myself time for biking and swimming and probably can't concentrate on the running this group will require. I'll investigate and see.
No comments:
Post a Comment