Sometimes an experience hits you at the right time and place and becomes meaningful instantly … below is one of those experiences. Lauren Fleshman … a pro who runs with the Oregon Elite Track Club and just missed the 2008 Olympic team with a foot injury, surprisingly won the 800m at the 2010 USA Outdoor National Championship on Friday night in Des Moines, IA.
Nothing beats raw emotion … nothing contrived; she said the first thing that came to her mind. ”Balls. All that was, was balls.” Now let’s play a bit of catch up …
Friday was a scheduled rest day.
At 5:40am on Saturday morning, I hopped up and made my way to McCarren track in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to meet a teammate and his personal running coach. This teammate is a solid B team player on CPTC and knows I cannot keep up with him so this was more about teaching than anything else. Here is a pic of the track copped from the Interwebs:
McCarren Track
We worked on biomechanics, did some drills and tested out what I learned (my teammate already knows this stuff) with a few 200s. The takeaway was the importance of emphasizing and using the forefoot when running on the track. I have heard and read much about forefoot running, but it was very cool to have someone drill me on it and provide instant feedback. I’m looking forward to doing the drills prior to Tuesday night track workouts … hopefully it puts me in the right frame of mind and gets the muscles in tune as well. Not that it matters much, but the splits for the 4 sets of 200s were: 35, 33, 33, 34. At his trainer’s instruction, I started out slow for the first 50m and then began to open it up a bit on the straight-away … probably a 75% effort. It felt good, easy and natural. Yes, I know … track will be in my future too.
Afterward, I planned to log some easy miles back in Central Park after the return subway ride, but missed my window. Therefore, I had to wait until 1pm to get back outside. It was hot and humid. I only intended 4 or 5 easy miles anyway, so as long as I kept this in mind, the weather shouldn’t be that bad. I remained on the shaded parts of the Bridle Path for the entire run … 5 miles at 8:21 pace.
The plan for Sunday was a mid-distance run … low double digits depending on weather and generally how I was feeling. Since I traveled and ran quite a bit this week, I wanted to keep it steady. Unlike yesterday, I got out at a reasonable hour – 7:50 am. It was still humid, but the cloud cover provided nice protection against the hot sun. With so much of the week running on asphalt, the dirt of the Bridle Path and Reservoir was certainly welcome. Nothing too exciting about this run … there was a race going on simultaneously, I saw a few teammates running along my path, etc. I was cruising along at a relaxed clip and realized I hit 10 miles. While I didn’t have the totals at the top mind, this has been a big mileage week. Therefore, I decided to shut it down …
2.2 mile warm up @ 8:49
4.03 steady running @ 8:33
3.75 cool down @ 8:45
Tomorrow I’m bringing back the Weekly Running Review so we will see for certain how the week shaped up.