Yesterday I went to my first class in the TeamSteam training program. I left work wearing such nice warm running clothes with the exception of my shorts. It was 32 to 34 degrees outside depending on where you got your information. As I left work, my coworkers told me what a trooper I was to go out in the cold dressed like that. I got to the high school and found a HUGE group of runners... every one of them dressed in tights. I'm always a little nervous to show up to a class in tights for fear that I'll be the only one in them and look like a wuss. However, I'd left my tights at home in Texas (not thinking I'd need them) so I had to make due with shorts. Some runners gave me sympathetic looks; others certainly thought I was crazy.
Then I saw him. There was a man in the crowd with a Mizuno headband identical to mine. and his jacket. At first I thought it was the very same Motorola-Mizuno-ultrarunner-Mark jacket I was wearing. It was the same Mizuno jacket, but without the Motorola Marathon logo! ...and yes. Yes, he had the same black Mizuno gloves I'm known to wear. (Do I even need to tell you what kind of shoes he was wearing?) I've met my Mizuno twin.
The two coaches told us that around100 people were pre-registered with maybe 25 more registering that day. They also said this type of weather during TeamSteam training was a first. Then they sent us off to do a 16 minute warm up with the instructions to turn around when we hit 8 minutes. We hit the turn-around point at 5 minutes so our warm up was just a bit short. Along the way, I talked with a guy I'd met while standing in the crowd and showed him how I'd gotten sunburned just the previous weekend in Austin. He didn't want to hear about the sunshine in Texas!
We met on the track and started doing our speedwork. This was the first time I'd been on a track with 70 (80? 100??) people, so it got a little nutty at times. I'm used to only about 12 or so people in the RunTex Gateway group. We did a new (to me) kind of workout. Run out for 1 minute, stop and rest for 1 minute, and then turn around and run back for 1 minute and if you hit the starting point, you can stop, and then we rested for another minute. It was difficult to run extremely fast due to the large crowd, but I did go at a decent pace. I stopped and talked a little bit with runners near me, as the coaches threatened that those who talked during the workout would have to (and I don't remember what we'd have to do as I was probably talking). As I ran back "try not to let anyone pass you", I passed up nearly everyone (which is easy to do since everyone who was in front of you runs at a slower pace). I snuck up on two guys running who heard me and took off toward the starting point, not about to let me beat them. I laughed and talked with them for a little bit during our rest. Next time it was 2 run out, 1 rest, 2 run back, 2 rest. As I ran out, I met another guy who seemed to run about the same pace as me, or just a little faster. I really couldn't believe I was finding myself TALKING DURING SPEEDWORK. Some of my answers to his questions were short and choppy, but we definitely had a conversation. (I may be banished from the Austin running community if they ever find out I did such a thing. It's just so wrong!!)
Then an interesting thing happened between the two sets. As we were standing around resting for two minutes, snow began falling from the sky. Just in case we weren't sure if it was freezing or not, it was now confirmed that the weather was certainly freezing. I pointed out to my new friend, "Look! It's snowing!" and he responded with "I don't think that counts as snow." It was snowing darn it. and we were running in it. Our next set was 3 run out, 1 rest, 3 run out, 2 rest. This was the first run I didn't finish faster than I ran out. For the last run of 4 minutes and 4 more minutes, I decided it was too hard to keep up the same pace, so I'd just go a little easier. I didn't want my legs to be completely dead at the end of that workout. I did return to running the second half faster again.
Finally, we were given 5 minutes to rest and were encouraged to get some water. I got in line behind my Mizuno twin, so I took the opportunity to say hello. "I see you like Mizuno almost as much as I do!" We chatted a little, and I found out that the headband he was wearing was actually not the same as mine. It's not even out on the market yet. He has a friend who is the Mizuno rep for the whole US. Someday I'd like to have connections like that! He was either really focused or not all that interested in talking, so I didn't find out much more. He said he was going to see his friend when he went to run the Boston Marathon. There's only two men from this town running Boston, so I half-know who he is.
After our break was the real test. We were being timed for THE MILE.
One year ago, at the beginning of my TriTex triathlon training program, I was timed on a cross-country (and cross-1K kid's run) one mile course and ran as hard as I possibly could. I suprised myself by how quickly I could run a mile. I finished in 9:13. Today, I know I can run a 5K and a 10K at just below a 9 minute pace. From my running around the track today, I also knew I was running the short distances around an 8:00 pace. I was sure that if I pushed hard I could hit 8 minutes, maybe even lower. I wanted to get a pretty accurate idea of how fast I could do a mile, so I was going to try my best. In order to feel as speedy as possible, I pulled off my jacket, my gloves and my headband. I also pulled up the sleeves of my 30K shirt so that I could easily see my split times.
As we lined up, I was behind one person on the outside lane. My plan was to take off for the first 100m so I could get ahead of the crowd and not worry about being slowed down by having to pass people. After that, I aimed to pace myself at 2 minutes per lap (400m). I did a perfect first lap. Even if I didn't have a watch, the coaches had set up a bright red LED race clock at the start/finish line so that we could see our times. I saw that I was about 10 seconds ahead which is where I had to be with the inital sprint. Lap 1 in 1:49.9 I ran the second lap very evenly as a few more runners continued to pass me by, completing it in 2:00.6. As I ran the third lap, I worked to maintain speed. Some people were finally lapping me, so I moved to a more outside lane. I missed hitting my lap button, and so the split time of 2:03.7 was off. I'm pretty sure it was 2:00 or slightly below. For the final lap, I just kept pushing. As I rounded the last corner to run the final 100m, I looked at the track behind me. There weren't that many runners behind me. I felt disappointed that I had run so hard yet in the end, most everyone else (many of whom had not trained all winter) beat me to the finish line. I ran all out to the finish line finishing amazingly strong with a final time of 7:45.4! The last lap was recorded as 1:51.2, but was probably closer to 1:55. While I recovered I thought to myself that I probably could have pushed myself a little harder. I only felt like I was running at 90-95% until the final 100m. As more people finished behind me, I finally realized I wasn't at the end of the group. Many of those people ahead of me who I thought had finished still had a whole lap to go! I cheered for those finishing behind me. The final person came in right at 10 minutes, which is excellent for such a big group of "6 to11 minute milers".
The coaches will be splitting all us runners into at least two groups according to pace. I'm really really hoping I'm in the faster group. I'd like to follow Shae's training tip #1 (#1 because it's the only tip she's given me): Train with people who are faster than you. Considering that the group is of 6-10 minute milers, I'm guessing that I barely made it into the faster group. I guess I'll find out next week!
Running the numbers today, my Go for the Gold 10K time and PR (55:02) predicted a mile time of 7:56. Using my new mile time, it predicts a 25:46 5K. My Round Rock Express 5K time and PR is 27:39.65. So depending on the course and conditions, it looks like I am ready to shave up to 2 more minutes off my 5K time.
Today I had the most amazing run. I wish I had a camera, because it was a perfect blue sky. The sights and views were so suprisingly incredible, I'm sure going to look at this town a little differently now. I saw some incredible wildlife, runnerlife and walkerlife out there. Someday I'll post pictures of the trail. For now, I sleep
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effendi stole my .)
