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Wearing spikes for 5 1/2 miles after not wearing them for a several years is a decision that a person can make, I suppose

October 17, 2023 (Afternoon)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
Note: I originally posted this to strava, but it felt to rambling and running-loggish that I felt it truly belonged here.

Today was a track workout at AU with the GDS team, a quality speed workout as in the days of yore. To get myself back in the high school cross country mindset, I decided to bring my spikes, which we always did for workouts at the track in the early 2000s. I have no idea when I last wore my spikes since there was no track near where I lived in Philadelphia the past two years and I didn’t run any cross country races there. I’m not even sure I’ve worn them since Covid. For those unfamiliar with spikes, in addition to giving you a better grip on the track, they also have very thin soles to cut down and weight. The consquence, however, is that you were striking the track with almost no cushion, plus the metal pins elevate your toes a bit so you’re essentially doing a calf stretch every time you push off. Coaches generally advise easing into wearing spikes gradually over the course of a season so as not to hurt yourself.

I merrily ignored all the stage wisdom. I also neglected to think through just how long this so-called speed workout was. An 8 x 400 workout is already a substantial amount of time to be running on your toes, but when you’re doing a 400m recovery after each one, plus striders and couple 200s before hand to text out what kinda speed my legs had in them (not much), you’re looking at a solid 4.5 miles. And of course, I nearly always jump into another group of runners once the kids I’ve been pacing have finished their workout. Therefore, I am now very very sore. Still, it was really fun pacing.

I am definitely not in sprint shape. I started with the second fastest boys group (Gideon Siff, Andrew Leopold, Alex Bhatia etc) who are supposed to run 70 seconds or faster and struggled along with them for the first 200m each time, only to find myself scrambling around the curve and down the homestretch well in their wake. After four such strugglefests, hitting 70, 72, 73, and 74, I demoted myself to the third-fastest boys group (Mac Penniman, Nathan Ireri etc) who were aiming to run under 75 and set to work pacing Bodi De , a freshman, who had just run 76 well behind the others. Here I again managed to “lead from behind” shouting advice and splits to them for the first 200-300m before losing the group entirely. I’d occasionally catch up with Bodi on the final curve or start of the homestretch, which would prompt him to check into another gear. So in some sense I was being useful, though it was more of a work out for me than I’ve done in a long, long time at a GDS practice. (Somewhere in the middle, during one of our cooldowns, I also jumped into some random group to paste Max F for 150 m after noticing he was all by himself.) Afterwards, I paced Emma, Eliana Green, Nura Idriss, and Ava Hall for their final pick ups, which was a far more reasonable pace for me to actually do some coaching as we ran. I then jogged back to school with Myles and Anthony, talking about strategy for this weekend’s Skip Grant Invitational.

So assuming I didn’t mess my body up too much—and that remains to be seen—it was kind of a great workout! In spite of my ill-considered choice of footwear, and having relatively little turnover in my legs, and having only been training for 2 weeks, I managed to hit some decent time—all between 70 and 75–plus two 200s at 35/36, and a couple bonus 400s at 89 with Emma and 91 with Eliana. Need to take the rest of this week cautiously and slow however if I want to be able to continue running with the kids till the end of the season (or whenever my flight to Israel gets rescheduled to).