Back From the Near Dead

My little kid came down with a nasty stomach virus on Wednesday last week. It was quick moving and he was better by Thursday but by Friday, my husband and I were lucky enough to come down with it at the same time. Thank goodness my in-laws are near by because there was no way were were going to be able to do anything for the boys on Friday. But finally, I'm back above water and (knock wood) the crud is out of here!

So on to my track report!!
First of all, I have to say that just the fact that I even showed up was a major accomplishment. I do not do well in those types of situations...you know, the ones where you don't know anyone, and have no idea what to expect. Oh, and the fact that it took place at a high school didn't exactly make me feel all warm and fuzzy.

As I was walking up to the track, I literally had to force my feet to keep moving. I could see all the group members hanging out, stretching, chatting, everyone seemed to know each other. And of course because my mind loves to play games with me, I swear it went totally silent and everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at me as I walked up. In reality, no one probably even noticed. Except for the two women I met last Saturday. They came right up to me and made me feel super welcome which was great. Everyone there, in fact, couldn't have been nicer but I still had that "what the hell am I doing here?" feeling. They had all done these track workouts before and just kind of smiled at me when I asked what was about to happen.

On to the workout.
The first thing they did was had us all run 100 yard strides 4 times. I was a bit concerned that I was already out of breath after that!

Next, we ran a timed mile. They told us to go out slow then pick it up at each lap, pushing pretty hard on the last. Of course I did the exact opposite and went out super fast and by the middle of the second lap, was slowing down. After the mile, they talked for a few minutes about the importance of pace, etc, etc...all the things I'm so bad at and the main reason why I signed up for this. If they can teach me how to go out slower and save some gas, it'll be a miracle because next up was the timed 800 (they told us we should do it in exactly half the time it took us to run the mile) and wouldn't you know it, I did the same damn thing. Speedy first lap, much less speedy second.

Based on the 800 times, the split us into two groups. We then did timed 400's, 4 times. During all of this, they were telling us where we should be, time wise, how hard we should (or shouldn't) be pushing ourselves, etc. They had a ton of great advice, I was just having such a hard time with it. We only had about 30 to 60 seconds of rest between 400s so it was a tough workout for me. Just before we started the last 400, one of the coaches told us not to "go crazy" and I kind of chuckled and said "don't worry" because seriously, I didn't even know how I was going to walk to my car at that point! A guy next to me just smiled, tapped his head and said "You'll get it. It's all up here. This is going to help you, I promise!" I hope he is right because at that point, I felt pretty defeated. At the end, I jogged a half mile, stretched out and left. As I was walking to my car, I could already feel my legs screaming. But I can find some good news! Even though I was not pacing properly - coming out way to fast at the beginning of all the timed runs - I was consistent. All of my times for the 400 were within 3 - 8 seconds of each other and my 800 was pretty much exactly half of my timed mile, so that's a positive...right?

The next day I got hit with the stomach bug from hell so I obviously missed the group long run on Saturday morning. It was a scheduled 8 miles so on Sunday, I thought I'd try to do it on my own. Holy crap. My body felt so weak and my legs felt like 300 pound weights were attached to them. I managed just under 6 miles but it ranked right up there with one of the worst runs ever as far as how I felt goes. The rest of the day, I still had no energy but today I think it's starting to come back. Hopefully I'll be able to run 2 or 3 miles on the treadmill tonight. And more importantly, I'm hoping my inability to do any kind of proper pacing on Thursday was due to the fact that I was sick and didn't know it...maybe my brain wasn't functioning right!! I bet this Thursday (yes, I'm actually going back for more torture) will be so much better, at least, that's what I keep telling myself!