We Interrupt This Track Workout For A Long Run

I have something of a checkered past when it comes to speed workouts. Or does checked mean "mixed?" Whereas my past is more uniformly "foundering." In any case, every season it seems to take me a couple of tries to get a handle on what it is I'm supposed to be doing on the track.


Until last week, when I ran my mile repeats entirely by feel at a generally reasonable pace. They weren't perfect, of course, but I wasn't hanging my head in shame either. From the get-go, I was running at the proper pace, and didn't crash and burn. Was I turning a corner on speed work?


My spirits were further buoyed during Sunday's race, where I held on to a sub 7 pace for nearly 8 miles in Central Park. Oh, and I we won. As IMan and I took our cool down (7!) miles, he said to me "you could be running your mile repeats even faster!" I said "you could participate in public hand-holding with me even more, but that doesn't mean you want to!" I didn't say that, because I only just thought of it, but I wish I had, because the logic is sound. Just because I could (possibly, but probably not) run faster didn't mean I was going to; my workout paces were based on a very scientific process that included Googling "McMillan Pace Calculator" and copying by hand the numbers it spit out onto the back of an envelope at my desk. And yet, in spite of my long history of failing to adhere to the correct pace at the track, the seed was planted.


Tonight I had another track workout on the calendar: Yasso 800s. According to McMillan (and Bart Yasso), I should be running each 800 right around 3:20. After a long warm up run from the gym near the office, I toed the line for the first repeat and took off running just a hair under "uncomfortable." Again this week, the spotlights were off (those must just be for the spring and summer soccer games, eh?), so I ran without looking at my Garmin until I was done with the first set. 3:04.


Woah. Take it down a notch, Walsh. You have five more to run. But secretly, I was psyched that I didn't feel bad. I took off for number two, and as I was crossing the line for the second lap, a big club set off in the inside three lanes to warm up. (If that club was yours, on the East 6th Street track around 7:00pm, you're a bunch of dicks.  Thanks for being totally not accommodating or share-y). I spent that second lap dodging people and weaving through the lanes, and lost all sense of pace. The second 800 clicked off in 3:02.


Okay that's just ridiculous, Claire. This time, at least try to run it normally.


I waited for a break in what has to be New York's most populous running club and hit the line for number 3. This time 3:09. Better! But as I took my recovery lap, I noticed my left hamstring (the same one I suggested may have been dangling out of my leg during the race on Sunday) was getting progressively tighter. Half way done, though!


Number 4. 3:08. Hey! Look at what I'm doing! I mean, still going too fast, but at least consistently so!  I am not entirely sucking at this!


Alas, my fourth recovery lap saw me stopping to stretch out my tight hamstring, which was exacerbated with each hard effort. I set out for the fifth of six 800s, but backed off after the first 300 and told myself I'd rather have 4 good ones done and run a long, relaxed cool down than have 6 done and have my hamstring flapping around outside my skin 6.5 weeks away from Boston. Okay and also, quitting early meant I wouldn't have to own it if I did indeed crash and burn on the last two 800s!


So I wrapped up that lap, grabbed my water bottle, and ran another 7 miles.


Okay.  So maybe that wasn't the best idea, given that I'd just bailed on a track workout due to the potential for part of my insides to be on the outside.  But I had to get back to the gym anyway, and I could have run up and across 23rd Street to get there, or down, and up, and across 23rd Street to get there.  

See those teeny circles on the East Side? That's the track. Were you part of a team that worked out there around 7pm tonight?  You're a jerk. 

I was hoping that some easy miles would help loosen me up, but I'm quite certain they had the opposite effect, and by the end of my run, all my extremities were curled in and I was all hunched over like Gargamel.  Which reminded me of the first time I ever needed physical therapy, following knee surgery, and the therapist (who actually sort of looked like Gargamel) demonstrated (via extremely painful manipulation of my limbs) how having a tight hip, for example, can have repercussions all the way down to your feet, because even the muscles that don't work directly with the one(s) impacted by injury or inflammation are forced to respond to the changes made by the muscles that do.  And that reminded me of another time I needed physical therapy, when the therapist told me that I had such weak pelvic muscles that I'd probably experience "urinary incontinence" during a race.  And that reminded me that I NEVER WANT TO EXPERIENCE THAT.  And that is the story of how I ran 800s and also a long run at the same time on a Tuesday, and was reminded that one's body is a system working in harmony, so don't screw up any parts of it, even if you don't think they're that important.  And don't do anything that will result in incontinence of any kind, at any time.

And for those of you concerned about the hamstring possibly protruding from my leg, when I got to the gym, I foam rolled the shiiiiiiit out of it.  So at the very least, I, like, smushed it all back inside.