First Time Indoors

Well folks, another running first tonight – running indoors on an actual track. Tuesday night intervals with CPTC are held at The Armory. I’ve never seen the facility (or any dedicated indoor track) before, so it was an experience for me.

Another unexpected treat of the Armory is that it is across the street from New York-Presbyterian Hospital, so if I passed out, there would not be much commuting time to the hospital. I never ran track in high school (played basketball growing up) or college (nerd), so it was cool to take it all in before saddling up. Amid all the high school, college and professional runners/sprinters and track & field athletes, I loosened up and met more members of the club. Even before taking my first step, Coach rightly questioned why I showed up. I’d just run a hard HM on Sunday and we both knew I was still sore and not in top form to do speed work at a high level. However, I knew that this upcoming Thursday night was doubtful because of a previous family commitment and I did not want another week to go by without running with the team.

A couple of lessons learned:

(1) it takes reps to get used to the elevated turns/curves on an indoor track. I wasn’t able to take advantage of the natural decline as I kind of stumbled around. I never bit it, but came close a couple times.

(2) I could probably use racing flats for indoor and shorter distances. While I think my training kicks are light, Coach explained why I might have some trouble on the track with the comparatively thicker sole. As I pushed off the curves, I was sensitive to rolling my foot too much so I tended to gingerly hit the turns. I never considered racing flats before. I might pull out my old NB 903s next time. I think the sole is thinner on those shoes. Maybe I can find some flats on the cheap.

On with the workout. The plan called for the following:

Loosen up stride – 3 x 200 with short recovery

2 x 800 @ 4 mile pace, recover 200

4 x 600 @ 5k pace, recover 200

3 x 300 @ 3k pace, recover 100

On pacing, since I just blew up my previous 10k benchmark, I have no idea what my 10k, 5k or 3k pace is or should be. Here the benefit of running with others comes into play. I was happy to let someone else lead and I could chase and not think. Once again, I ran with the “slow” group (probably about 10 of us). My results:

Since I’ve done 800s before, I had a point of reference on pace and feel. The effort expended indoors felt comparatively less than what I try to pump out on my own. I’m usually in the 3:15-3:30 range. 600s were kind of a blur so I don’t remember much about them. I was pretty happy with the 300s as I finished the final repeat strong. The recovery on each was progressively less (200 to 100). Overall, it was a great workout. Coach told us that he designed last night’s intervals as an appetizer to the full meal on Thursday (which I will miss – bleh) and not be surprised if you don’t feel exhausted immediately after. I didn’t. I felt like I’d worked hard … and looked it too … (like Marathon Maiden, I sweat at a ridiculous/embarrassing level), but I was more energized than anything.

While I never felt like “I can hang with these guys”, I did feel more comfortable than the first night. This is likely a result of just getting to know more people as well as added confidence from the HM.

Lastly, it is nice to not think about distance for the first time in many months. My next race is a 5k on March 7^th. The next HM isn’t until May. (I added a new section to the blog on the right side with Upcoming Races.) Therefore, while I’ll still maintain my weekly mileage and mid-distance runs, for the next few months it’s all about speed.