The Pretender

So, funny story from last night’s workout that I figured would be worth sharing, particularly since I don’t have much of anything else that is. Andrew, Matthew, and I were running on the greenway when a little over half a mile in this guy comes up on and is way over to our left running through the grass. It was almost like he was trying to sneak by us. Andrew immediately said something like “Oh no, that’s not happening” and threw in a surge while Matthew and I just sat back and watched. The guy finally jumped up on the greenway and proceeded to chase Andrew. He was decked out in basketball shorts, a t-shirt (it was almost 90), and had his i-Pod on. I was pretty amused, and since we were probably running just over 7 min pace when the guy came up on us, I was curious to see how long he would last. Matthew and I enjoyed the show for a good half mile or so before, as was pretty predictable, the guy started to come back to us a little. Andrew, meanwhile, had put a good 50 meters or more on us, so just as the dude was probably starting to hurt, I looked over at Matthew and said "alright, let's go get him" (meaning Andrew), and we threw in a surge that had us blow by our new acquaintance like we were Usain Bolt and Tyson Gay. Anyway, best of all, we were laughing about it a few hundred meters later when I decided to look back to see where the guy was. He was nowhere to be found. I’m guessing he turned around and probably didn’t have a whole lot of fun the remainder of his run. Funny stuff.

As for the more serious part of our run, after a 4 mile w-up, we did fartlek of 6 X 3 min on/2 min off. It went pretty well, although I may pay for it later in the week. Most everything was low-5:20’s (we backed off some on the last one), so it was a little faster than the fartlek we did on the greenway a couple weeks ago, yet it felt a good bit more controlled and easier. I’ll take that as a good sign, especially on tired legs and in some pretty nasty heat. It was also nice because I had gotten pretty aggravated by the workout the night before when we did the standard 6 miles followed by 5 laps of strides on the straightaways. Thanks to Mr. Sayers, we ran the turns faster than usual and hit the last mile in the low-5:30’s (with me dragging a couple strides back). I probably should have been happy with that since it was 10-15 sec faster than we’d been running, but as is typical in that sort of workout, I got blown away on the straights due to my lack of speed and I just got frustrated. I felt like I was running pretty hard but still getting walked away from. The good thing is that’s exactly what I need. The only way to get fast is by running fast and I know that. It’s just sometimes I want to progress faster than is reasonable and need to be reminded to be patient while the process happens. I also have to remember that even when I’ve been really fit, I still haven’t been able to do that well at those type of workouts (another reason I need them). I’m a strength runner plain and simple, but the more pure speed/turnover I can build the better off I will be. Regardless, I’m loving having some good guys to train with and having fun doing what we’re doing. I also appreciate the help they’re giving me and look forward to all of us getting fitter and fitter. It may take a while, but I’m pretty confident that I’ll eventually get back where I want to be, and I also think Andy, Andrew, and Matthew are gonna do some serious damage to their PR’s across the board. Should make for a fun time for all!