The Armory was closed last night for a high school track meet. How dare young whippersnappers interfere with my favorite workout of the week. Therefore, our normal Tuesday night intervals would move outdoors to Central Park. All things considered, given the winter that we have experienced in Gotham, the conditions could have been much, much worse for late February. Still, they were not conducive to optimal speed work. As a result, Coach switched up the program from intervals to fartleks. Ok. When you combine the fact that I have never done a fartlek workout before, with my fledgling confidence (except indoors) with the club and the weather conditions, last night had the makings of a tough evening. Nonetheless, it did not matter. I am never passing on the opportunity to run with these guys, ever. Also, the weather could be crappy on race day, so … suck it up and run
Instead of the regular ~30 members that make it out for Thursday night tempos, only a handful of us were “adventuresome” enough to hit the park last night. Note, that the track coach (different from my road coach) held an indoor workout Tuesday afternoon for the team. I couldn’t make that workout, so nighttime was for me. Fortunately, one other person in the 42:00+ 10k (aka the “slow”) group 
showed up just as we were about to warm up. Sweet. I was resigned to the fate that I would be running alone. Thankfully, my buddy came to the rescue. It’s funny as we were warming up, she said the same thing to me … how happy she was that I (or anyone else in our sub-group) showed up. It’s a bit discouraging to start out with someone who runs a sub-34:00 10k 
. Aside from the comradery, I’m glad she arrived because otherwise the workout would not have gone off as planned. The fartleks consisted of 4-5 picks ups with 4:00 hard, then 2:00 jog for 6 miles. Therefore, clock management was key. I’m still a Garmin novice and as fate would have it, I hit the touch sensitive bezel and screwed up the display. For much of the run I was looking at the compass. The time was running, but I could not see it. Arrggg! As a result, she was able to keep proper time. (Note to self: practice more with the Garmin.)
The 1st pick up was fine, kind of. It was on a gradual incline. I must not have heard her when she said we were at the recovery stage because it never felt like we had one when the 2nd pick up hit. She probably assumed I wanted to hit it hard last night. Umm, no. Therefore, we ran a hard-ish 10:00 pick up instead of the intended 4:00, 2:00, 4:00 up to Harlem Hill. I can’t win! When we finally got the correct pacing on the final 3 miles, I found a rhythm. I was working hard and held it together until the final pick up. She was kind enough to let me hang with her and slow up at the recovery point until the last one, as my legs were shot and she blasted off. I hung with one of the Assassins for 85% of the run, which is definitely progress. She’s no joke – Boston and New York qualifier, etc, but very kind and encouraging. Total mileage of 9 miles. I don’t have great split information, but from what I could tell, we were at a mid-7′s pace for 4:00 hard portion, until I slowed on the last couple pick ups.
At the conclusion of the run, my thoughts immediately turned to “did I just screw up Thursday night’s tempo?” The point of last night was to be easy and an appetizer to the main course on Thursday. Well, nothing is easy with this group so I put it out there, as usual. Surprisingly, I woke up this morning feeling normal. I slept hard, which helps. As I’m writing, I’m still feeling okay. Hopefully I did not completely deplete the reserves, since I really want to have a good one on Thursday as it is intended to prepare us for the 5K next Sunday.
Cold. Wet. Tired. Good workout.