THE TRACK.....

..some people like cross country....others the roads, but when I am in at least decent shape I love the track. At least doing workouts. I figured out a long time ago that as much as I love racing, I also want to know exactly what is going on when I am running. It's one of those things where me, my watch and various track splits somehow mean something to me.

It's kinda ironic as I generally don't like controlled long runs and instead enjoy the mtn trails, and even some of my favourite workouts are fartleks, but having the opportunity to run in a completely controlled environment that also has the unpredictability of what others are going to do inspires me. I've really noticed this over the last few years where I've given road running more focus, but I cannot say that I actually enjoy the racing. It's kinda boring in all honesty (yeah like running round and round a track isn't), but I love the strategies and tactics that come only on the track.

Tonight was such a day. I went down to Richmond for some mile repeats (actually 1600m) with the UBC pups. I wasn't looking for a ball buster session, but was hoping to get in 5 sets that were a little quicker than the last time I was down there (and only did 4). But this time I was also hoping to make it tougher to go faster because I wanted to simply hang out for 2 laps and then make a little push over the last 2 laps. Shane Carlos was there and wanted to apparently hit 4:30's.....far too rich for what I wanted, but the UBC guys were only planning for high 4:50 range and so I hung out with them, but the only problem was I was getting boxed in and ended up running some strange intervals.

In the end things actually went quite well. I typically split high 2:28-2:30ish and then dropped it down to low 70 and then high 60 range and averaged around 4:49 for the 5. In every one I was at least 2:20 for the last 800. Not massive times, but considering how I ran them, how I felt (very very relaxed), what I've been doing to myself (I could still feel the weekend in my legs) and the improvements I am seeing I was quite content.