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I like running again

March 28, 2019 (Afternoon)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
Today reminded me that I love this sport.

I've been in a pretty bad mood about running for at least 2 weeks now, maybe longer. For weeks now, I've been narrowly focused on counting up the miles till that week's goal or counting down the days until I can run fewer of them. I've been begruding the time running takes out of my day - not just the actual time that I'm moving but all the extra time that I'm stopped to look at the map or my watch, the stretched and cooling down afterward, the time it takes to get dressed and tie my shoes and get out the door. Even showering and cooking and eating, tasks I have to do anyway, feel like the time that that running is sucking up because they're connected to it. Part of it, I think, is that I'm just tired of running without any company. I've never been so alone in my training for so long; no weekly or biweekly workouts with the BAA, no runs with friends in Boston, no team I'm coaching. It's just endless miles up and downhill, in the cold or the rain or the snow or the dark, past angry dogs, never any trails, mostly slower than I'd like...

But today, ah, today, at last, I came back really happy from a run and the glow lasted all day. At long last, after 3 failed attempts to use Sarajevo's one track (it was closed due to rain or soccer games or the end of business hours), I finally managed to do a track workout! And what a workout it was. With only 2 1/2 weeks left in my season, I was feeling the need for speed. In fact, since I hadn't been on a track since December (not counting the one snow-covered lap I did at the end of the Sarajevo Unusual Marathon), I hadn't really done any sprinting. A couple of my fartlek workouts included 1 or 2-minute pickups, but its always hard to know if your *really* moving fast when there's no way to time yourself and no one your running alongside to compare yourself with. The last measured workout I'd done had been 800m pickups around a park and I was frustrated by how low my times were. But I remembered that track workouts almost always manage to lift my spirits, so even though that track was 6-mile away across town and I would have to take a tram to get home, I decided it would be worth the time investment. Running timed pickups on the street just ain't as satisfying as knowing your times down to the millisecond and monitoring your progress.

Felt good on the way over and was pleased to see my pace was in the mid-7s without having to try much at all (the gradual downhill aided that). I paid the 1 Bosnian mark fee at the guard booth and then hopped on the track to do sprint drills and strides. Since it about around 1 in the afternoon, no one else was using the track except for a couple of shotputters and their coach and one or two joggers later on. I resolved to do a workout I'd dreamed up on the way over 4x8, 4x4, 4x2. Nice and symmetric, getting shorter and faster each time, with a total mileage of 3 1/2 miles - appropriate to this point in the season (midseason workouts for marathon training tend to be more like 4-6). The warmup routine instinctively made me nervous, probably triggering subcounsious flashbacks to our warmups at the AU track in high school as we waited for Anthony to pronounce our fate. I tried to push all that aside and decided I'd try listen to music, at least for the first pickup. The first 800m was hard, and I when I saw the time, I was a bit discouraged. True, 2:43 was faster than I'd run my 800s in the circuit around the park last week, but I was rested now and doing it on a track. Ideally, I should be able to do 800s repeatedly in my marathon time (hours and minutes) converted to minuted at seconds. And though a 2:43 is probably faster than I can run a marathon right now (or Boston anyway), my PR is 2:40 so that I what I was aiming for. The next one was a bit faster, 2:41, though I felt like I was having to work pretty hard for it. Maybe I should abandon the headphones, I thought, and stop trying to distract myself. Face the pain, feel the pace. I blew through the first 200m with a jumpiness free-flowing energy that launched me well on my way to a 2:39. Sweeeeet. The next one was also a 2:39, despite the return of a brutal headwind on the backstretch which had briefly abated, and I felt so good about myself I momentarily considered changing up the workout in order to continue doing 800s. Well, I figured, with your marathon only 18 days away, better to stay #hungry for more and move on to the shorter stuff rather than prove what kind of endurance you can muster.

The 400s flew by in a dream. The first one was faster than I'd imagined myself capable and each one after that was faster than the last. Before starting the last phase of my workout, the 200s, I was a bit nervous about being able to continue my streak of getting faster and faster, but I convinced myself to put those thoughts aside and just run loose and relaxed. I blazed out in a 33, again faster than I'd thought I could manage, followed by a 32. The third one was also a 32, though a half second faster, but I wasn't satisfied. I wanted to see a new digit on the clock. As I geared up for the final pickup, I told myself "do it for the kids!" and silently went through the names of all you on currently I team whose names I could rapidly summon. Then I set off an a wild pace, up to my toes from the get-go, cyling my legs around in a rapid spin, pumping my arms like my life depended on it. 50m to go and I plunged by legs up and down like pistons. 30m to go. I didn't know how to go any faster. There were no more mechanics to focus on that I wasn't already exercising to the max. Screaming in my own head the names of those who look to me as an example, I made one final push to the finish. Just at the moment, I out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a jogger in lane 3 who looked like he might reach the finish line ahead of me. "Not on my watch!" I thought and plunged madly ahead trying to pass him before the line.

31 seconds. Hot damn! Now that's what I call a workout!

Incredibly pleased with myself I took a victory lap around the track and then another around the park before setting out toward home. When I finally glanced down at my phone and added up the miles it had recorded plus the miles of pickups and recoveries I'd run without it, I realized I was damn near 13 miles for the day. According to my schedule, I was supposed to do 7 1/2. Ridiculous. Here I'd been complaining to myself for weeks about how much time I had to spend running and how much I was looking forward to cutting back my mileage at the end of the season, and yet when that tapering period finally arrived, I couldn't help but run more than I was supposed to. What the heck, I can just run hilarously little the next two days, or take one of those days off. I deserve it.

Times:
800 - 2:43
800 - 2:41
800 - 2:39
800 - 2:39

400 - 75
400 - 74
400 - 72
400 - 71

200 - 33
200 - 32 high
200 - 32 low
200 - 31