Tonight I reluctantly went to my final CFE session at the track. I was zonked. I was zonked before I opened my eyes this morning. I had to convince myself not to bail. At lunch I took a leisurely walk to Kin Canyon where I chatted with Matt and Tara for a few minutes.
The fresh air did me good. I was able to get through the afternoon without nodding off at my desk. My shoulders were also tight because of the kettlebell WOD yesterday morning. I can’t get a break.
I was about 20 minutes early for our session. A first because I am usually the last to arrive. I decided to run a few laps to warm up. My legs decided to come out of hiberation on the fourth lap. I was relieved. I felt a little pull in my left hamstring when I was ran at Riverbend last night. Not good. Some light dynamic stretching before the others arrived seemed to do the trick. I couldn’t wait to run.
We started out with a warm up lap and the usual warm up routine. Jeff surprised us with skipping ropes. Yes! Remember I’m a lapsed martial artist. And you know how we martial artists love our skipping. Helps us stay light on our feet. We spent a few minutes practicing our pull and fall while skipping ahead.
I felt good. Practicing the pull and fall actually works! Imagine that. We did a few more drills before getting to the main event – the 1-mile time trial. If you recall we did a 1-mile test at the beginning of the clinic. I ran an ugly 7:28-mile.
Now it was comparison time. Was I faster? Was my form better? Or did I just plain suck? All those questions and more would be answered in one mile.
I boldly declared I wanted to finish at least one second faster or at least run the same time. I had no idea what I would run. My shoulders were tight. I was hungry. My body was tired. Anything could happen.
So one mile is four laps around the track. My problem has always been running too fast and losing steam for the rest of the workout. This time I paced myself. I did not try to kill it on the first lap. Instead I kept an even pace throughout. I only picked up the pace when I staring down the final 300 metres.
Time? 7:13. I beat my previous time by 15 seconds. Bonus! Yes beating my previous time was awesome but I was more thrilled that I did not get crazy. Score one for the slow runners in the world!
Now that CFE is over, I don’t want to lose what I have learned. I feel my form is better and I am more conscious about what my body is doing. I’m still swinging my arms a bit. I still heel strike at times. But these things will come with practice.