The Glide

Being new to the blogging thing is nice because you have past events to pull your posts from.

I work out with my coach, Tom, once a week. The workout has as many as 25 or so runners all together but my pace group has 3 or 4 runners on most nights. Our workout for the evening started with a 20 min warm-up run and dynamic stretching. The main set was a 2 X 2 mile tempo run. The recovery time between sets was a jog (no walking) of about 300 meters from the end of the 2 mile run back to the start point. The pace times were assigned to each group and ours was 9:15/mile. My first reaction was WHAT? 9:15 – our group has been running much faster over the last several tempo runs. We have done several 5 min at X pace, 4 min at X-1 pace, 3 min at X-2 – you get the picture – and these paces have started out at 2:05-2:10 per lap or 8:40 pace. Yes I understand that we are now to run 2 miles twice without slowing but……Yes Coach – I will do what you tell me.

We moved to the starting line and off we went. Our group was spread out over about 50 meters as we all tried to find our “pace” but by a ½ mile we were all together and working as a team. We passed Tom at the 1 mile point at 8:58 – a little fast but not bad. I tend to die on the end of tempo runs but that night was my night. The last 1000 meters of the course is a straight flat road with only street lights so it would have been easy to cheat – slow a little and set the bar lower for the second run but with the group working as a team – the pace stayed strong and we finished in 18:23 or a 9:11 pace. Now the trick was to do it again.

We made our way back to the start – cleared our watches – and were off again. We lost one of our teammates (she has a sore IT band and was only to do one of the runs – not good because she is a great pacer) but kept the pace solid. I was beginning to feel the pace at about ½ mile in but I took several very deep breaths, relaxed my upper body and arms, dug deep and was not let the pace slip. And then it happened – The Glide – my whole body relaxed and I was just running. My breathing deepened but did not increase (no shallow chest huffing crap), my arms stayed down, my chest was higher, and my head was up – with NO extra effort. The last mile was a dream run. We had to go over a small bridge – aka hill where I run – I charged it, down the back side I lengthened my stride and used gravity instead of energy and the last 1000 meters was like I was out walking with my kids. Tom had told us – NO RACING – hold the pace and stay consistent. We finished the second 2 mile tempo at 18:12 or 9:06/mile. Truth be told – I felt like I could have sprinted the last 800 or just kept on going.

I hope that The Glide will come back very soon – I like that kind of run!!!