A Trip Down Memory Lane Part II: La vie en France

This month's Running Times has a feature on "running buddies," a person they described as "someone who understood our passion and shared the battle and beauty of the road." Last week I also came across an recent article from my college newspaper, the Hoya, about running in school without being on the varsity XC or track team. Both pieces got me thinking about some of the people I've run with over the years.

I spent the summer after my senior year of college doing a study abroad program in Tours, France. Even though I already had my degree and didn't need the credits, I really wanted to make my dream of living abroad a reality before getting crushed by the oppressive workload of a decidedly non-creative grad school program. I had minored in French but never been to Europe so the summer program in Tours seemed like the perfect way to spend the summer.

There was never any doubt that I would keep running while in France, but it would have been tempting to simply take things easy had it not been for my running partner.

Our local track.

As part of the program, run through Georgetown, all the students lived with host families. Although my host family was somewhat far from our classes--they lived in St-Cyr-Sur-Loire, a small town across the river from the center of Tours--they were just down the street from another Georgetown student, Renée, who happened to be a quite an accomplished varsity runner.

Although I had run my first marathon less than a year before, I was still getting used to "training" as opposed to simply running (I think I had still done fewer than 5 races total). Renée, however, had a rigorous schedule to stick to and I did my best to keep up with her every step of the way.

Not a bad spot for hill work.

We did some seriously punishing intervals at the local track (le Complexe sportif Guy Drut), did hill repeats up L'avenue de la Tranchée, and did long runs along the Loire, sometimes running through vineyards as far away as Vouvray. I was really lucky that Renée put up with me. She was a much more experienced (and faster) runner than I was, but not wanted to slow her down, I pushed myself. She was also extremely encouraging and also inspiring. 

Unfortunately, I went off to grad school in New York and only saw Renée a few times after that. She went on to do some pretty amazing things, like qualifying for the Olympic Trials (though unfortunately she didn't make the team). Still, in my mind, that's the summer I really became a runner and I have Renée to thank for that.

(Maybe next time we'll talk about how that's the summer I really became a wine drinker or cheese lover, but then again, this is a running blog, right?)

One is the Loneliest Runner...

I've been very lucky the past few weeks because, with the exception of the days during my trip to Vermont, I've been able to make every team speed workout. I used to do speed work alone almost exclusively and usually in the early morning. Since that's what I was used to it didn't totally suck seem that bad. Chalk it up to "what you don't know can't hurt you," because now that I've started doing speed work in a group, it's hard to imagine flying solo anymore.

The hill I used for my 200s, Morningside Dr.

Unfortunately, I've got a very busy week at work and I knew there was no way I'd be out in time to make last nights 7pm workout in Central Park. Did I just decide to skip the workout? If you're guess is yes, you probably haven't been reading this blog for very long. I decided to do the workout tout seul and before work.

What was the workout? Hill repeats--twelve to fourteen 200m repeats at 5k pace to be precise. You know what? It wasn't all that bad. I got up super early and discovered that it's a lot cooler at 5am than 7pm (okay, I already knew that, but the part of me that likes sleep tends to overpower the part of me that likes lower temps). I also discovered that I can still push myself without "good" peer pressure since I did the full 14 instead of stopping at 12.

The moral of the story: I can miss a team workout and still do the work but it's definitely more fun when you have others yelling at you encouraging you to do your best.

This is Gong to be Repetitive - Hill Repeats

I always look forward to Tuesday nights. They mean speedwork in Central Park, usually a tempo or some other crazy long(ish) workout. Occasionally, though, we do hill repeats. Hill repeats are great because they're strength training in disguise but hill repeats also suck because, well, they're strength training in disguise.

Last night was a hill repeat night. Since my team is hosting a track meet on Saturday,* we focused on short repeats last night. The workout was 15-25 100m hill repeats--run up at around 2-mile effort, and jog down. Repeat. The jog down is the only rest during the repeats.

These short, tough repeats are great because they work your core, your hip flexors, abductors, adductors, lower back, and hamstrings. They also help you to activate your fast-twitch muscles, something a tempo run doesn't do. I'm going out of town this weekend so I'll be missing the track meet but I have my first road mile of the summer next week so I figure the short speedwork will help with that too.

I might as well enjoy these short bursts of speed now because soon it will be marathon training season with its longer intervals and heavy dose of tempo runs.

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*Quick plug: if you're in town you should come out to the Whippet's track meet. It's only $10 and should be really fun! Details are here: Dashing Whippets Track Meet

Getting Your @$$ Kicked By a Cat

Last night was my first speed workout since Boston and, as it turned out, my first set of hill repeats since last year's Boston training cycle (in my usual training I replace repeats with hilly long runs).  Anyway, on Tuesday nights my team--like so many others--meets for speed work in Central Park. With Brooklyn just over two weeks away I figured it was time to get my legs moving again.

Last night's workout? 5x800m hill repeats on Cat Hill. For those of you who (a) don't live in New York or (b) don't run in Central Park, Cat Hill is located on East Drive between approximately E 75thand E 81st. It's called Cat Hill because of Edward Kemeys' bronze "Still Hunt" sculpture of a cougar.* At just about a quarter mile and an average of 3.7% grade it's not the longest or steepest hill in the park--those distinctions belong to Harlem hill which is a third of a mile at 4.4% grade--but it still makes for a good workout. To get 800m we kept going after the crest of the hill, enjoying some downhilll, another rise, and some flat to finish just past the Met.

Our goal was to do the repeats at 10k pace. I haven't run a 10k since last summer but my old pace was around 6:10. Several of the guys said they would be running around a 6:15 pace and that sounded good so I set off with them. The first one felt comfortably hard. Could I have kept running at the end? Yes. Did I want to? No. Turns out we had run it in a sub-6 pace. We jogged back down and tackled the next one--5:45 pace. I joked about doing the third one at 5:30 pace--we didn't, but it was still sub-6. By now I could feel the marathon in my legs.

After three I wanted to stop (the workout schedule did say 3 to 5 repeats) but one my teammates suggested I do the next one a little slower and at least get in an even 4. I heeded his advice and did a 4th, still under 6:00 pace. After that one I knew I had to do all 5 but I took the last one a little easier, right around 6:08 pace--probably my actual 10k pace these days. After the repeats (including a slower 6th one to pace a teammate who still had one to go) I jogged home making it 9 miles for the night. It was a tough workout but I was really happy with myself afterward. I can't say my legs were happy with this morning, but that's why they invented the recovery run.

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* Before Kemeys' statue was added in 1883 this stretch was called Cedar Hill.