My First Track Workout

I have been running 1 or 2 mornings a week with Jenny and Lois who I met through the Strong Running Mama’s group.  Both of them are training for the NYC Marathon and Jenny is also training for the Hudson Mohawk Marathon, which is what I am also training for.  I’ve been enjoying getting to know them both and also enjoying the new routes they have introduced me to. 

Anyway, last week when we were running they started telling me about a track workout they do with Team Utopia every Tuesday night.  They said the workouts change each week and that the team is a really great group and that I should join.  I was really interested but my potential problem was that Joe works on Tuesday nights so I would have to see if my parents could pick Mia up from school and watch her for me.  Luckily, we normally go there for dinner on Tuesday nights so I didn’t think it would be an issue and my parents were happy to do it.

I’ve wanted to do track workouts for a while.  I know they will help make me a faster runner and help me get closer to that sub 4 hour marathon goal, but I am always afraid to do them on my own.  I don’t know why, it’s probably ridiculous, but I’ve always felt like I needed someone there to tell me what to do so joining a team sounded like the perfect opportunity.

So I signed up late last week and started to get excited for Tuesday...until I saw the forecast.  They were predicting 96 degrees for the high! Great- my first track workout and I was going to die.  I checked with Jenny and she said we were still on so I sucked it up and went and I am so glad I did.

After a 1.5 mile warmup the coach told us we would be split up into 3 person teams and would be doing 200 m relays for an hour.  I think he said something about how this was the only workout he thought wouldn’t kill us in this heat.  Excellent...

Jenny and I were put on a team with Chuck who was super nice.  I got to go first and unsure of how to pace myself I tried to go as fast as I could.  Unfortunately I didn’t have my garmin set up properly for a track workout so my data isn’t very good.  But it appears I did most of my 200 m relays at a 6:30 pace. We ended up running 3 miles of relays so 4.5 miles for the night with the warmup.  Some people did a cool down run but the workout went a little later than I expected so I skipped that to go get Mia and get her ready for bed.  Overall my pace for the evening was 7:30.  Again, I need to figure out my garmin so next week I can have better data.

Having the teams of 3 really helped with the heat.  We each enough time in between our laps to drink some water.  By the end of the night we were all dripping with sweat and I felt beat but it was a good feeling. I can’t wait until next week.

I had made plans to meet Jenny and Lois the next morning for a 5 miler but I think I didn’t drink enough water after the workout.  I ended up not being able to sleep and had a horrible headache that lasted through part of the next day.  I just tried to rest and drink a lot of water and eventually felt back to normal although my legs are still tired. 

This morning I felt much better and was able to run 7 miles at a 9:26 pace.  The heat and humidity has also started to break so hopefully next weeks track workout won’t have the same effect on me.