Back on Track

How I forgot to post about Tuesdays workout I'll never know :) I'm a busy bee, and I guess the blog is one of the first things to slip right now!

Tuesday I made the journey back to the track! I think I haven't been on a track since September!!! That is a long time boys and girls. I basically stopped all track workouts then because the speed seemed to agitate my calf and my foot to the point of barely being able to hobble after. It was pretty ugly.

So Tuesday was the first test. The workout wasn't extreme in terms of pace or mileage. Just 12-16 quarters at 93 a piece with 90 second recovery jogs. Easy peasy ;)

We were lucky to get access to a nice local track that is 200 meters indoor and had it mostly to ourselves. I was late to the official CED group run, but I was doing my own workout anyways so it wasn't a big deal. I got to start my first quarter with Lizzie as she was supposed to run 2 miles at 90 for her quarters so I just tucked in behind her to get a nice smooth start and not run too fast. That one was pretty much right on in 92. After that every two quarters I'd flip the direction to keep the hips and calves as happy as possible and I seemed to settle into an 88 rhythm for the most part, coach G was pretty buys with those doing their real hard core workouts so I didn't get chastised for being a little fast. I was very conscious of keeping it smooth and pretty easy. The calf got a little tight but I made sure to try and relax it between each quarter.

Because the pace wasn't insane I did not get my usual track lung thrashing for the first time back and I wasn't even too sweaty of a mess. It was a nice night to just get in a bit of hard work, and the track, though small, was great for the first time back for me. I decided to go with 12 quarters in the end to try and behave a bit and justified picking it up a hair the last 3 by telling myself I was running less than prescribed :) I focused on getting up on the balls of my feet the last three and trying to run more from the core than my calves, and easily the pace dropped to 85 and 83 and the last one I ran almost full on effort consciously telling myself that I wanted to end this one feeling like I could do one more at the same effort. Thankfully coach missed the split as I probably would have got chided for finishing that last one out in 76. But man did it feel good to move a little bit, and though I know 76 isn't flying, it sure feels like it on a tiny 200 meter indoor track in the dark! :)

Not going to lie I wasn't happy that the calf was tight at the end of this one, but on the positive side it did not knot up at all. So I foresee lots of calf exercises and calf and foot pampering in my near future every day for awhile. Fingers crossed that's all it take to get back up to speed on the track workouts here soon! But if not I am dedicated to whatever I have to do to get in these anaerobic workouts, even if it means deep water running or, god forbid, the elliptical!