The Dreaded Track

Monday was my favorite day of the week, the "rest day", and Tuesday was an "on your own" swim workout, although it became another "rest day" for me as I never made it to the pool. So tonight's workout was not only the first Team workout of the season, it was also my first workout of the season (I figure I will ease into the "6 days-a-week training" regiment as opposed to jumping right in). It was at Kezar stadium, which was home to the 49ers for about 25 years before they moved to Candlestick... well, at least the original pre-1989 earthquake stadium was, as it has since been rebuilt. Anyways, a workout at Kezar can mean only one thing, a track workout. Now, some people love track workouts, but for me, there aren't many things more boring than running around a track. I hate running in the first place (I think it might have something to do with the fact that I'm not that fast, some people would even say slow), but running around a quarter mile oval over and over just makes it even worse. In the coming months I will hopefully learn to like it because we will have most of our Wednesday workouts at Kezar. The good thing about Kezar workouts is that the night usually ends up at Kezar Pub, an Irish bar across the street, for some post workout rehydration, typically in the form of a Guiness. Tonight was one of those nights and it was nice to wind down and catch up with a few people on the team I already knew but haven't seen in a while.

Oh yeah, the workout.... we had to do a 15 minute warm up followed by what's called a "30 minute marker set"- a timed effort used to record our progress later in the season as well as to determine which group we will train with. Now, the workout schedule says runners running less than 13 laps will be in group one, running 14-18 laps will be in group 2, and running more than 18 will be in group 3. Of course I run 13 laps, right on the border of groups 1 and 2; so now I have a dilemma, do I go with group 1 and be the fastest of the slowest, or do I go with group 2 and be the slowest of the intermediate group? Of course I know what I want to do, but since running is the sport where I need to improve the most, I decide to put myself in with group 2 and will be the slowest of the intermediate group. I look forward to doing this again in a few months to see what kind of progress I am making.