Tuesday Track Workout

Tuesday Track Workout

The Workout:
jog to store from work (2 miles)

warm up to track (1 mile)

2 x 1200 w/ 400 recovery
4 x 300 w/ 100 recovery
2 x 1200 w/ 400 recovery
(All at faster than 5k pace)

jog to work (2 miles)

After a long Sunday effort, I had a sneaky suspicion that I should take an extra day off or just do an easy few miles.  Throughout my life I have slowly gotten better at listening to my body and resting when I need it.  Yesterday wasn't one of those days.  On the jog over to the store, I just never got into a rhythm and had some pretty deep soreness in my calves, back and shoulders.  I said to myself... "Self, you should take it easy at tonight's workout".  Of course I got there and fell in with some fast runners and we burned up the track for the first 6 items.  By the middle of the 300 items, I could feel my left knee starting to ache and my back and shoulders were talking to me.  Two more 300s and both calves started talking to me.  Nothing in particular hurt terribly bad but I just felt the kind of deep soreness that let me know I was on a one way train to injury town.  I decided to sit out the last items and just jog easy back downtown.

As the group pulled away to finish the final two items, I felt a strange surge of guilt and a sudden desire to either catch up to the group or slink into a corner and disappear.  I don't know if I was worried about being judged by my running peers or what but I definitely didn't want anyone to see me sitting out the remainder of the workout.  I actually planned my departure from the track so that my group was on the back 100 and wouldn't see me leave.  I started jogging back towards town and my body just flat out rejected the work.  I could feel my legs tightening up further with each step so I succumbed to a brisk walk.  Half way back, I saw a runner on the horizon heading my way.  It was Gary Curran who had been out hashing out the harrier course.  As soon as I identified him, I started jogging so he wouldn't see me walking.  We stopped and chatted for a bit and then jogged off in our separate directions.  As soon as he was out of sight, I resumed my walk.  The whole experience was quite disconcerting.  I have never cared what other's thought and am a very confident person in general.  Suddenly I arrive back in middle school track practice and care what my peers think about my performance?  Why do I care?  My body and I are in this together and I was receiving the message loud and clear that running more was a bad idea.  Why wasn't I listening?  I'm certainly going to have to give this some more thought.  As my penance, I'm taking off running until at least Friday and even then plan on just doing an easy 2 miles.  Hopefully there is no permanent damage that will affect my shut-in run.