View Workout (Matthew Simonson)

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Back on Track!

September 3, 2019 (Night)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
Literally.

It was my first track workout in half a year and boy did I miss it. Not at first, however. When I got to the Boston Athletic Association's weekly workout, I was struck by the number of teammates I could name: zero. There were two guys I recognized but had never spoken to, and it was still the same coaches, but all my training partners from the past 9 years had magically vanished. The club normally has a real range of ages from recent college grads up to folks in the 60s, but tonight all but one of them looked younger, fitter, and faster than me. The last of these assumptions was soon confirmed on our first pickup, which was supposed to be a mile at "half-marathon pace" but had me breathing hard by the middle of the first lap. "Welp," I thought, as we spun past the starting line in a dizzying 80 seconds, "a half-marathon is literally 52 of these things, there is no way I could do that at this pace. My best half-marathon is probably around a 5:50-mile pace and we are currently running 5:20. I'm not sure my alumni challenge was even that fast."

I rapidly slammed on the breaks--metaphorically of course since all that was needed to slow down was to do nothing and let nature take its course. Over the next 30 seconds I was rapidly shuffled down the ranks of our 15-member pack, now strung out along an entire straightaway, and then unceremoniously spat out the back like sportswriter Norris McWhirter being shot off of Roger Bannister's experimental treadmill. With no pile of pillows to catch me, I continued to suffer around the track for three more laps, utterly alone and periodically looking back to see if any member of the elite women's group who'd started after us was close to catching up and could run with me. No such luck. "Why am I even here?" I thought to myself. "Isn't the point of a running club to have other people to run with?" Towards the end of the final lap I did notice however that the 40m gap between me and the next-slowest member of our group had not increased for quite some time. Hmmm. I came through in 5:55 breathing way too hard for a 5k, let alone a half-marathon.

Sometimes even when a small bit of hope has surfaced things get worse before they get better. The next pickup was 1200 which was even slower and equally lonely than the opening mile. I tried letting the gap between me and the pack increase at a steady rate like letting out a spool of a kite sting but still managed to run very unevenly. (I'm only just now realizing this must be because they were slowing down and I, in my pessimistic state, failed to realize it). 4:29, a 6-minute pace. After a 2-minute recovery we were back on for an 800, and at last my prospects started to improve. Two laps just ain't all that bad after you've suffered through 4 and 3 of them. Although the pace had picked up to what was supposedly our 10k pace, I managed to stay just behind the group the entire time. 2:46 - not bad! There were four of us now, the faster runners having been siphoned off so they wouldn't have to wait for us on the cooldowns (most years in this club I was in that fast group).

Next came a 400m which we ran just a hair faster than the pace we'd run the idiotic opening lap of our mile: 79 seconds. I even passed two of the other runners and finished second in our little group. "Aha!" I said to myself. These fools DID go out too fast. I should have known that within every recent male college grad who thinks he's pretty quick there lies the overconfidence and poor pacing of a high school freshman boy (not you Ethan Wolin, you're decent at pacing). The guy I'd passed in the home stretch admitted as much to me during our one lap cooldown between sets. His name was Brett, and he had just moved to Boston this summer, just joined the club, and apparently got sucked out too fast with the actual superstars. Those of us who once held the title of "King Slow Boy" of the Williams College cross country team know better than to think we can keep up with the fastest guys on our first lap of a workout.

Brimming with confidence from my pacing and suddenly feeling like my advanced age (and hence wisdom) could be an asset, I charged boldly into our second and final set. It was the same thing again--mile, 1200, 800, 400 with 2-minute recoveries--but this time I had people to run with. We took turns leading laps for the 12 and the 8, which I kept my eyes glued hypnotically to the churning calves of the guys in front me, rarely raising my eyes to check my progress, singing in my head and allowing my breathing to relax. We flew by in 5:50 and 4:19 (a 5:45 pace), a stunning improvement over the first set.

On the last two pickups I just took off and a pace that felt right, leaving Brett and a guy at least my age named Kevin someone behind me in the night. I nearly kept pace with Tim, the fastest guy in our 4-man group, who had in fact been suffering the fate I'd feared for myself--running the entire workout by himself. He and I closed out our final 400 in a 71 and 73 respectively which left me walking on sunshine (my theme song, Amelia Myrie?) except that instead of sunshine it was those powerful overhead lights they use to light up the MIT football field for night games and which make starry-eyed runners of modest talent like myself feel like they're in the Olympics. I jogged home and then did two more miles in my new shoes.

Coaching advice of the day: Workouts build muscle, no matter how you run them, but if you pace them wisely, they also build confidence.