Our club’s last speed workout on the track was last
Tuesday. At the start, we did a mile run
as a baseline, so we did a second mile time trial at the end of the training to
process improvement.
I am not, and will never be, naturally fast. I was the one in high school who would trail
behind the rest of the team on our warmup jogs at meets, mostly because their
jog wouldn’t be much slower than my race pace.
Speed workouts were torture because the rest of the team spent the rest
interval waiting for me to catch up with them, so when I finished my sprint, it
was time for the next one.
As an adult, it’s been nice to have my full rest between
intervals, and I have felt the results a bit.
I took another minute off my 5K time, and my results on Strava have
improved. So I was very much hoping I
could break 8 minutes in the mile, something I hadn’t done since high school.
It was one of those days where you are never going to be
ready. I ate all the wrong foods, I
didn’t sleep well, and then I got there and the bathrooms were locked. Some of the other runners were getting
nervous about the bathroom situation, so I reminded people that once we start
sweating, we won’t have to pee. Plus,
it’s no different than any other race I’ve ever done.
I remembered not to push too hard on the warmups, and then
it was time. I was as ready as I was
going to be. We started, and in the
first corner, my left quad seized.
Blargh! But I wasn’t going to
give up. My friend Diana was sticking
with me, and she’s fully capable of doing a sub-8 mile, so I hung with her the
best I could on the first lap. On the
second lap, I passed her. I was in shock
as she wasn’t sticking behind me. And of
course, I slowed down a bit, expecting her to stick with me. As I took the last straight for the lap, I
shook out of it and thought “push-push-push.”
My struggle, more than anything else, is that my head is
going so much faster than my body. My
head wants to push to a full sprint, but I also can’t sprint an entire
mile. On lap 3, people who started
behind me started to pass me. Except
Diana. Then the faster runners started
to lap me. As I reached the start line,
my head knew I needed to give it my all, but my body could not go any
faster. I hit the last stretch and
sprinted the last 100.
As I crossed, I unlocked my phone and stopped my watch. 8:19, only 8 seconds faster than my original
mile 11 weeks ago. Arrrgh! The leader of the club looked at me, trying
to encourage, and I just shook my head, acknowledging my disappointment. Diana finished right behind me—as it turned
out, she had to stop and tie her shoe.
We still had a workout to do, and I stayed out until I did
every step of the advanced workout, the last one on the track. Posting the run on Strava, I realized that
maybe I can’t get faster on one mile, but to qualify for the Boston Marathon, I
have to string together 26.2 sub-9 min miles.
On Sunday, one of my friends told me that I can go faster,
but just have to clear out whatever is holding me back. He might only been a runner for a short time,
but he’s exactly right. So the next step
of the journey….find out what has me stuck at 8:20 and get unstuck.
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