Total Distance So Far: 23.5 miles
Tonight we had a training session at a track in Portland near OHSU.
As explained to us by the TNT Running head coach, Joe English, these track sessions are to challenge ourselves for short distances. We are supposed to push our pace on the track sessions for 400 meters, and then recover for 2 minutes. Repeat. These aren't sprints, just challenging our running pace.
Right now we're only doing this 4 times (1 mile), but we'll be upping the reps later on. The idea is, if we push ourselves for a short amount of time, we'll be stronger the next time we try to run a longer distance. Or as Joe put it, our "gas mileage" gets better from these sessions.
So I strapped on my Garmin and tried out my 400M run. I was getting average paces of 7:13 and 7:14 minute miles during my 400M runs. Not bad! I was nice and winded after each 400M lap. Joe made sure we knew we should be breathing pretty hard after each lap. He even came up to me and said, "YES! This is exactly what I want to hear!" when I was trying to catch my breath after one of my laps. He said he was going to hold me up as his model for how to run these laps. Nice. Good job, me!
The funny thing was ALL the TNT runners were at the track session, and as soon as we set off it became clear who were the experienced marathon runners, who were the first time marathon runners, and who were the first time half-marathon runners. The experienced runners took off like an arrow! I heard one of them saying their pace on a 400M run was around a 5 minute mile (this guy also had a Garmin Forerunner). That's quite a pace! heh. The half-marathon runners had the beginner option of running for 100M and then walking 100M repeat for 1 lap, and then resting at the end of the lap. The people who chose to do this were the ones who didn't think they could run hard for 400M. So these runners are really really starting from scratch! It shouldn't make a difference, the TNT info session claimed they could get anyone ready to run a marathon in the 4.5 months we have, so I believe even the 100/100 runners will be able to make the final run. It'll be interesting to watch all of our progress!
It was a really short session, about 15 minutes total (for me), and then a 10 minute run cool down.
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oh btw, tonight val showed up late (after we were done). First thing she said to me was, "nice hat." Yes, it's true, I was wearing the very hat she gave me on Saturday. I told her it was a good hat.
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