After a long day of TAing & research, I got to join my awesome-sauce gal Fish for a trip out to the fancy-schmancy 400m indoor track. We arrived without incident, paid, walked in to the labyrinth of locker rooms, and promptly proceeded to wander aimlessly around until a helpful track center employee took pity on us and showed us the correct staircase to take. To be fair, the track doubles as a speed-skating oval and a hockey rink, so there are several staircases that lead to vast expanses of ice rather than mondo. And Fish & I are both just a leeeeetle navigationally lacking.
Anyhow, we finally found the correct set of stairs and set out on a brief warmup. It was pretty sweet watching the skaters zoom by and the rink had some awesome music going, which was extremely helpful in drowning out our labored breathing once the workout began. We had planned to do 4×200, 4×400, 4×200, but ended up dropping down to 10×200 with 200m jog recovery since Fish took a couple weeks off around Christmastime. I thought it’d be a breeze – 200’s, decent recovery, and the pace was only supposed to be 46’s. In college I could’ve done that in my sleep.
I am really, really glad Fish convinced me to cut it down and stick to 200’s. We did manage to average 46’s, but they felt soooo fast! We were both a little freaked out when we looked down at our watches after the 1st 200 and saw 47’s – we both felt like we’d been hauling! Luckily some middle school girls decided to taunt us with the very *original & creative* chant of “Run Forrest, run!” and the annoyance was enough to drive us to some quicker 200’s through the rest of the workout.
Overall it was a humbling workout – I am not in nearly the shape I thought I was in. However, I’m one step closer to being in shape and excited to put in some more painful bouts on the track! Gotta love that burn, even when it brings me down a notch 😉
Any fun (short) workout suggestions? And does anyone have tips for dealing with obnoxious middle-schoolers???
This is a bit random, but... 