All Downhill From Here

I parked near the firehall a good 1/2 km away from the indoor track at the Olympic Oval last night, so I wouldn’t have to pay the $3 parking fee. I was late arriving, so it made for a good warm-up before the warm-up.

By the time I’d stashed my windpants and wind breaker in my backpack (I wore shorts and a tech T) it was time to do the 4 lap warm-up. I warmed up alongside Cindy, and had a nice chat with her. Then it was time to do 30:30s. This is an exercise where we set our watches to beep every 30 seconds. For 30 seconds we run pretty darn hard and then alternate that with 30 seconds of gentler running. We were to keep up the 30:30s for 18 minutes, which meant doing it 18 times consecutively. “Pretty darn hard” meant we had to run hard enough that we wouldn’t be able to talk. I kept track of the minutes on my fingers, as I’d forgotten to check the time at which we started.

This was the PERFECT exercise for my short attention span, and to my surprise I actually enjoyed the faster seconds more than the slower ones. There was a point at 9 minutes when I was pretty darn tired of going pretty darn fast, but then my watch beeped again and my feet, form and lungs garnered all my attention. Towards the end it started to feel like my watch was just beeping ALL THE TIME, but it was a very nice feeling when I was finishing the last one.

I had a nice big drink of my Ultima and walked a lap after the 18 minutes was up. Linda and I jogged the 4-lap cool-down together.

This brings my FBF total to 39.4km so far.

Our former roommate in Tampa, Honourary Calgarian, Ironman, and good buddy Ellie is racing the RnR Arizona Marathon today. Go Ellie Go!

I should really spend some time taking my Christmas lights off of my Rockhopper header. Maybe I’ll get around to it after I post my XC race report and take down our Christmas tree…

I’m going back to ye olde reliable Calgary Roadrunners 10k group routine: speed work on Tuesdays, hills on Thursdays. I could have shown up and done these at the Oval too, as their bleachers offer plenty of stairs and there’s even a nice big ramp up behind them. I didn’t, though, because I live in a hilly neighbourhood and have just the right hill for these kinds of workouts about a mile from my house. We’ll call it my 2 minute hill.

I jogged a flat mile to the top of my hill in -3C/26.6F tonight, wearing a long sleeved T over a short sleeved one, with my lined windbreaker over top of leggings. I wore mitts, but didn’t think it was windy enough to have to cover my ears. My ears complained for the first km that maybe I should consider covering them in -3C anyway. They warmed up when I hit the hill, though. I left my jacket at the bottom of the hill, because a) I was warm enough not to really need it, and b) I couldn’t just jog home if I felt crappy after running up only a couple of hills. I would only bring it up when I’d decided at the bottom when I’d had enough.

I call it my 2 minute hill because that’s how long it took me to get up it the first time tonight. Two minutes the first time, tra la tra la.

The second time my legs said “what the heck are you DOING!” and fussed so much that it took me 2:30. Get over it, leggos, we’ve got a few more to do.

The third time up I sucked it up and imagined myself as jeff, fighting for his BQ in last weekend’s OC. That worked better, and I mustered a 2:14.

After that I imagined myself running Disney with my buds Nancy, Jeanne, Tory and Linae and other Penguins, and the 4th and 5th runs up took 2:04 and 2:15 respectively. I really enjoy my imagination sometimes.

I would have done a 6th hill, as is on the 10k group schedule, but remembered that a) I’m still recovering from a cold, b) Hubby was expecting me back sooner than I could get home, and c) I have a Cross Country race this Saturday. Plenty of hills there!

I was plumb tuckered on the jog on the way home, another good reason I’m happy with 5 instead of 6 hills tonight. Now that I’ve had my chocolate milk, it’s time to turn in.

Last night I got out with the Calgary Roadrunners and ran with the 10k training group at the Olympic Oval. As much as I’ve enjoyed running with the Gord’s Store group this last couple of winters, I’d been missing the challenge/motivation of speed work with a group and the connections with my running club. I’ll still run at Gord’s from time to time, when I don’t feel like paying admittance to run indoors, but last night I bought a 10-visit pass to the Oval, so I’m committed to at least that. 10 Tuesdays should take me into Mid-March.

Dawn, and Krista had never run at the Oval before, so it was fun to introduce them and Tanya (new to Calgary) to what running is like there.

The Wikipedia link for the Oval has a much better picture of the ice the running track surrounds.

All of the group’s track workouts start out with a gentle 4 lap warm up and another 4 lap cool down. The assigned workout was “1200m Down”, which basically means to do intervals of 1200m, 1000m, 800m, 700m, 600m, 500m, 300m, 200m & 100m. This workout basically helps familiarize all those new to the track with how the unusual distance markers work. Instead of the usual 400m, this track is about 450m around, to accommodate the 400m ice skating track inside it.

We would never have managed all of that before 8pm, so after the warm-up Krista and Tanya and I did intervals of 800m, 600m, 400m, 200m and 100m. It felt good to go fast and flat, concentrating only on the rubberized track, my breathing, and not colliding with anyone.

It’s January, and there were a lot of folks out with various racewalking and other clubs. Weaving through the crowds was kind of fun, as it took my mind off my feet and captivated my short attention span, sort of like how roots and rocks do on trail runs.

My cough completely fled after the warm-up laps, but I took it easy in the 800m interval anyway. I must have been taking it easy, because I was instructing Tanya while we ran the interval, and I’m not supposed to be capable of conversations during these things. I shut up for the remaining distances, and was happy with my times.

Coach Derek egged us on encouraged us to do more intervals than we had chosen to do.
CD: Did you do the 700m?
Me: No.
CD: Did you do the 500m?
Me: No, I’m doing 8,4,6,2,1.
CD: (zipping past me on the straightaway) Karen, the 300m mark is back there!
Me: (dripping with sarcasm and jogging blithely on) Aw, did I miss it aGAIN?

The 200m and 100m intervals were a total BLAST, being so short; maybe I should have done the 300m too. Wheeee! Krista totally kicked my butt in the shorter intervals, but it was fun trying to keep up.

Ah well, I was plenty tired enough by the time we started our cool down laps. I walked the first and fourth laps, and hoped that I had not overdone the workout in light of my cold. So far it seems that the workout helped, as I did not cough hardly at all last night. Hurrah!