Tracktion
Every morning in Philadelphia, a cheetah wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest woodchuck or it's ego will be crushed. Every morning a woodchuck wakes up. It doesn't care if it outruns the slowest cheetah or not. So it doesn’t matter whether you are a cheetah or a woodchuck; when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.
That stupid little parable came into my head when I was running, and I spent a part of my cooldown doing horrible things to it.
First for the record, DNR on Monday and Tuesday and a "Tenicum" yesterday - my usual 10-mile figure eight around Tinicum refuge. Its getting light later in the mornings, and I left as the sun was rising. It was a red ball; I won't belabor cliches like "fiery red ball" although they are apt descriptions. This image, with the marsh in the foregrounds and cormorants silhouetted against it, lingers in my memory from the run. Interestingly, the time I ran it in, 87:09, with 47:40 and 39:29 splits, were almost identical to when I ran it last week. But it was a woodchuck run, so the splits don't matter.
Overslept this morning and ran during lunch this afternoon. Wanted to get a 60-minute run in. Decided to run an Art Museum loop, but at the last minute I heard the track crying, "Seebo, Seebo" and went down to Franklin Field, where I quickly made up a tempo workout.
I think tempo lite is the best term for it. Did 6400m with no recovery, about four miles, looking to start at sub-6 pace and taking each 1600 faster than the last. 1600 splits were 5:57; 5:54; 5:59; 6:05. Not exactly what I had in mind. I can use the weather as an excuse, the noonday sun beat down hard and WeatherUnderground says it is 86 degrees. I'd like to have gone faster, but I was really winded at the end of this run. I think the latter matters more, for as long as I push myself in workouts like this I'll improve in the long run (sic).
While the cheetah maintained his composure today, overall its turning out to be another woodchuck week. "Traction" is the latest term I'm using in describing my training, as I say to people "I'm running but I haven't been able to get the traction yet to where it feels like sustained training."
I should have said "tracktion" instead. Get it? 7.5 miles in 59:24 (running clock).
That stupid little parable came into my head when I was running, and I spent a part of my cooldown doing horrible things to it.
First for the record, DNR on Monday and Tuesday and a "Tenicum" yesterday - my usual 10-mile figure eight around Tinicum refuge. Its getting light later in the mornings, and I left as the sun was rising. It was a red ball; I won't belabor cliches like "fiery red ball" although they are apt descriptions. This image, with the marsh in the foregrounds and cormorants silhouetted against it, lingers in my memory from the run. Interestingly, the time I ran it in, 87:09, with 47:40 and 39:29 splits, were almost identical to when I ran it last week. But it was a woodchuck run, so the splits don't matter.
Overslept this morning and ran during lunch this afternoon. Wanted to get a 60-minute run in. Decided to run an Art Museum loop, but at the last minute I heard the track crying, "Seebo, Seebo" and went down to Franklin Field, where I quickly made up a tempo workout.
I think tempo lite is the best term for it. Did 6400m with no recovery, about four miles, looking to start at sub-6 pace and taking each 1600 faster than the last. 1600 splits were 5:57; 5:54; 5:59; 6:05. Not exactly what I had in mind. I can use the weather as an excuse, the noonday sun beat down hard and WeatherUnderground says it is 86 degrees. I'd like to have gone faster, but I was really winded at the end of this run. I think the latter matters more, for as long as I push myself in workouts like this I'll improve in the long run (sic).
While the cheetah maintained his composure today, overall its turning out to be another woodchuck week. "Traction" is the latest term I'm using in describing my training, as I say to people "I'm running but I haven't been able to get the traction yet to where it feels like sustained training."
I should have said "tracktion" instead. Get it? 7.5 miles in 59:24 (running clock).
posted by seebo | 2:23 PM
2 Comments:
Our sun was a red ball this morning, too, because of some wildfires in the bay area. Flying cross-country yesterday, I noticed that everything seemed hella smoggy - or maybe it was just nuclear winter.
For not being in race shape, those splits are really quite nice on track. What are you gearing up for if you don't mind me asking?
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