Remember when I blogged earlier in the week that I was “psyched” about this week’s workouts. Be careful what you wish for folks. Tuesday brought the joy of 3 x 1 mile intervals. Thursday brought THE PAIN! Hill repeats, CPTC style. Even after running with the team for 3 months, the “firsts” for me continue. I wouldn’t say there had been grumbling among the group for more practice on the hills given that’s all we encounter in races, but folks wouldn’t have been upset if we had a dedicated workout or two. Last night was the night.
Drumroll … after a brief jog, we hit a 2k pick up @ 10k pace up the rolling hills of the West Drive to serve as the warm up. Knowing the brutality that was coming within 10 minutes, I started off slow. For the first 1k, my group was motivating at a HM pace. I started feeling loose so I picked it up and blew thru the 10k pace (heading somewhat downhill) and ended up at 6:24 (quicker than 5k pace). Remember, this is only a total of 2k, so it wasn’t taxing. In thinking back on the night, it was probably Coach’s way to get the nervous energy out of us before folks started blowing up by hammering the hills. After re-assembling at the tip of CP (110th St.), our task was as follows: 3 x ~600m up Harlem hill heading south w/ the same distance as a jogging recovery back to the start. Now, you place super-competitive and talented people in front of a known challenge that all of us know make us better runners and one would expect the results to resemble Middle Earth … unbridled brutality and mayhem. In reality, it was organized brutality and mayhem. Given the logistics of the group (40+) and the relative narrowness of the running lanes that we use to avoid getting run over by cyclists and roller bladders, the repeats mirrored an orderly death march up and down the hill. In general it was single file, but at points I saw the A group had 4 leaders which resembled a wall … each knife fighting for supremacy. It was kind of awesome to behold. As far as the turtles (my group), we knew we were in hell together so it was about as civil as you could get. For me, the first repeat was a hunter/gatherer mission … I’ve been up this hill hundreds of times, but now with peer pressure (and cheering), I had to resist the urge to hammer. No splits to speak of because I just let the watch run … kind of a rookie move, but I was more focused on not dying rather than calling the time of death. The 1st and 2nd weren’t very different … both hurt, but only in the moment. It was cool to have the A and B team cheering for us as we went up and they jogged down. I love the encouragement that is CPTC. The jogging recovery went too quick and before you knew it, we were facing the final repeat. We continued to quicken the pace and the 3rd repeat left all of us gasping for air. Just brutal.
Next up. Turn around and do 3 more hill repeats in the opposite direction … this time heading north up Harlem Hill at (in theory) a shorter, but steeper distance. 3 x 400m w/ the same jogging recovery back down the hill. It is at this point where you started hearing the screams of agony as folks hit the peak. I started to lock in hard … basically screaming my mantra in my mind, arms pumping like they were slot machines. Again, I had no idea of pace … not a full on sprint, but definitely faster than 3k. Adding to the scene was darkness (w/ some lighting from street lamps) and pretty strong wind. For the finale, I went all out (closer to a sprint after the first 50m) and started blowing by folks to get to the top. Call it a rare alpha dog moment, but I was definitely in race mode at this point … not racing my teammates, but visualizing race day and wanting to make certain I “prepared to win”. <– mantra. I screamed once I stopped and gasped for air. I sold out and worked it. Felt great. Horrible, body-crushing pain, but felt great.
We jogged back down to where we originally met up … 72nd Street. My sense is that folks were in a daze. Usually there is kibitzing for a good 20 minutes before everyone disperses. Not this week. The A and B teams were gone by the time we showed up. I said a couple of drive-by good-byes and headed home. 9.5 miles of absolute hell. If this is what it takes to BQ on 11/7/2010, I will do this until they carry me away in the body bag.