And after less than 10 runs in the off-season, it's back to track. Unlike Indoor Track, the first meet for outdoor is the first day of the fourth week. Even though there were a few cool aspects of track starting, I wasn't looking forward to it at all. So, I was surprised how well it went.
Monday: 7 Miles. I got there with little interest in running, and my body wasn't feeling great either. I was told to run with the new and a few returning distances. I was supposed to run easy for 15 minutes, then pick it up to a high 6s and see what shape everyone was in. Two immediately felt back and eventually dropped off on the speed increase, while the other stayed close to me until the final hill, where he fell off.
Tuesday: 5 Miles. First track workout of the season. Usually, we do a timed (all-out) mile on the second day of practice. So, I was a little surprised that we were actually doing a workout. We ran the same pace for four distances, each time dropping 400m off. About 2 mins recovery in-between, I ran 1600/1200/800/400. Something like: 5:06/3:42/2:28/73. Was so surprised how tiring this was, then realized it was because it was a humid day, and certainly not because I was out of shape. That, and I was a little sore from the stretching I am not used to. Difficulty of Workout: 3/5.
Wednesday: 8 Miles. I felt good early in the run, and knew that this would be one of my faster. However, only two miles in, I was very tired from running 6:15 pace and my legs started to hurt. One of the rare runs where I ran from school to house (or close to house) and back. Struggled through, especially with hills, but was very pleased with end result: 7 miles at 6:23 pace, tying my faster ever 7-mile run. (8 total because warm-up/pick-ups).
Thursday: 4 Miles. Today we did the timed mile (actually 1600), and I was really wishing Tuesday's and Thursday's runs were reversed. I wasn't great again, and the strides felt horrible too. Then we were off. I was very happy with my first 400, as I came through in 66, which would be my opening split in a perfect mile race. Then it felt apart. I got really tired, and slowed down a lot. I obviously wasn't coming near 4:30, but I hoped to break 4:40. I didn't get my 800 and 1200 splits, but was told I was on pace for sub-4:40. Didn't happen. I crossed the line in 4:43, tying my best practice time. I was so disappointed in this, as I felt I should be able to run at least a 4:35 in practice, and certainly ran it all out. I also timed my kick horribly, not picking it up until 50 meters to go. We ran 12x100 on the grass field, I was supposed to run 16s, which was about what I ran.
Friday: 8 Miles. I was too worn out from all the unexpected hard runs earlier in the week, so I wasn't going to attempt another 6:20 run, like Tuesday. I thought about running a 6:50 average, but decided to run with a slower group for a few miles at 7:20 pace, then break off and attempt 6:30 splits. My legs and feet hurt again, but it felt much better than Tuesday's run and went by quickly. I found this cool road called Captain's Drive of Beach Street, which had many different colored houses. I was frustrated by the amount of times I had to run dead ends/extra loops to make 7.
Saturday: 4 Miles. Based off Tuesday and Thursday, I thought we were immediately going to get into hard training. The workouts were much harder than the starting workouts in cross country and indoor. But, we ended up doing our first hill workout at the worst hill locally: Field Street. I made the mistake of remembering it to be a lot easier than it was. It has an easy section, then a very steep but short section. It became tiring to do this several, but never got extremely difficult and I actually enjoyed it. On the first one, the next runner was close, but after that everyone dropped way off. Palmer Street is parallel to Field, which looks much tougher. Also parallel to Field is Locust Ave, an interesting name. Difficulty of Workout: 3/5.
Sunday: 9 Miles. I was planning ten, but completely and wildly underestimated how tough the Yawgoog trails were. While the trails were somewhat cool, I would say that I disliked it. Frequent technical climbs and rocky sections slowed the average pace to over 10 minutes, something I don't experience often. I usually enjoy trails more than roads on an average run (but I much prefer to race roads), this was a step out of my comfort zone and far too technical for me. While some of Yawgoog trails were tolerable, I really did not like the trails near Long/Ell Pond as they were much too rocky and steep, even getting to a 16-minute average pace. My first mile was over 13 minutes, perhaps my slowest ever.
This week was great. The only low point was the 1600 being much slower than I expected it to be. This first week of track was much different from other seasons in two ways: it was harder and I wasn't immediately sure that I was the best distance runners. Freshman cross country and freshman track aside (first season I was unsure of my placement/second season I had someone close to me returning), I've been far ahead of the rest of the field. This time, there were three possible people who could be better than me.
Person #1: I actually had never this guy before the first day of track. The only reason I thought he might be a fast distance runner is because he looked good enough to be in the Olympics. He looked like a great runner. And then he went with the sprinting group, showing no interest or experience in distance running.
Person #2: This guy is a german foreign exchange student. Apparently he was an athletic standout and also told me he beat my score on the pacer, which is not an easy thing to do. While this wasn't the best standard of measuring speed, it scared me a little. He became a distance runner, but after he couldn't keep up the entire run on Monday, and was far behind on the week's workouts, it was clear he wasn't close to speed level.
Person #3: The final person with potential had recently moved from China. I never would've considered him as a runner, until several people told me he runs a 15-minute 5K. He actually missed the first two practices, which scared me a little a more. Then, after talking to him, he had no idea was distance running was and went with the sprinting group, claiming his 15-minute 5K was a thing of past. Two days later, an athlete told the coach he used to run a 15-minute 5K, and he was put with the distance group. The runner didn't do well on the group run Friday, but surprised me when he kept up with me on pick-ups and almost beat me when I raced him. He said he was injured, and would need training to back in shape.
So for now, I'm still Westerly's #1 distance runner. But, we'll see.
Weekly Total: 45 Miles (much higher than I expected for the first week of track)
YTD Mileage: 437 Miles
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