From Purgatory, With Love

I’m not sure where I am right now, but it’s definitely not heaven, and well, I don’t think it’s hell either, because during the 29 laps around the track I ran this morning, I’m pretty sure I passed visited Hell a few times. It was there, over on the right, and the devil was sitting there asking me how I was doing. “Great!” I told him, as I tried to keep him at bay, but 4 turns later, there he was again, waiting for me to click on my trusty TIMEX to get a lap split. And the little ufcker would then look at me, ready to pounce all over my soul, if I did anything as little as even flinch.

We started our workout at our usual 5:30am, and ran the 1.75-mile warm-up run over to the Austin High school track. When we got there, we were greeted by heat. Hot and muggy conditions are exactly what you want when you’re about to do drills, and so, without further ado, Sisson kicked us into gear: Side-to-side for 50 meters x 2, then over and unders x 2, then shorter distances of “the drunken horse” (as I call it). The drunken horse was followed by High Knees, then Highknees to stride outs, then backwards running with kicks. All in all, the usual prolonged drills.

Then came the fun… (everything was run at a 10K pace)

THE TEXAS 10K!
4 sets of 400 meters with 100 meter recoveries in between.
2 sets of 800 meters with 200 meter recoveries in between.
1 set of 1,600 meters (1 mile) with a 400 meter recovery.
2 sets of 800 meters with 200 meter recoveries in between.
4 sets of 400 meters with 100 meter recoveries in between.

That’s a total of 29 laps around the track or 11,600 meters or 7.2 miles.

That was one bitch of a workout. I think there’s a combination of things that made it even harder, and that was the fact that I forgot my earphones at home ( so no iPod) and about 30 people only had a 2 mile time trial today, while 6 of us did this workout. It sucked seeing them all finish after their 8 little laps, and all I could think of was… wow, I still have 21 more laps of this SHIT. And then, they stood around, over there, in Hell, drinking their waters, laughing, stretching and then running back to the Run Tex annex as I still had a good 15 laps to run.

My goal was to run 6 minute 40 second per mile pace. That equates to right around a 50 second 200 meter split. (I really prefer to keep track of my 200 meters splits more than 400s as it’s much easier to adjust, and also do mental math down to 100 meters, or up to 400 meters from 200.)

I can’t begin to tell you how heavy my legs felt for the last 5 laps, but i guess you just keep running, so that the devil sitting there, looking at you, salivating, and sharpening his claws can’t come after you just as soon as you blow up.

I failed to click the button on some of my 200-meter splits, but all in all, a 44min40second 7.2-mile workout translated into these recorded splits.
48
47
49
50
48
48
48
50
47
50
51
49
47
49
50
51
45
46
47
49
51
51
50
51
50
50
48
51
51
52
50
52
50
52
50
51
45
50
51
51
49
50

When it was all said and done, I sat there on the bench, next to the Devil. He couldn’t get to me, because I’d hit most of my splits, but he was still there, because he knew that I still had the 1.75-mile cool-down back to the RunTex annex ahead of me.

And now I sit here at work, trying to replenish the 2.7 pounds of fluids and food weight I lost during this 11-mile adventure. It’s going to be a long long day, but A gallon of water, a PowerAde, a 16 ounce water bottle of Electrolytes, and 2 drawers of food to choose from.



Chicago is 57 days away.
I’ve run 21 miles this week so far, with another 37 – 40 to go.
This is how dreams become reality.