Recap: Summer Track Series #1

It’s fri-nally Fri-yay! (Too much?)

Before we get to the recap, let’s catch up on this week’s training:

Monday: 13 mile TM workout with 5 “quick” miles (6:50 – 7:10 range)
Tuesday: Easy 12 + RW group run
Wednesday: Easy 5
Thursday: Easy 5 + Track Meet
Friday: Easy 10

We are also still going strong with the push-ups and sit-ups every M, W & F. This was the second week of “training” with 4 X 30 second segments of each. I haven’t been counting each time, but I figured once a week I should count to track my progress … so Monday I did:

Push-ups: 26, 25, 24, 18 (I always really struggle on the last set)
Sit-ups: 23, 23, 24, 24

Next week we bump up to 4 X 45 seconds segments of each. Eek!

Now to the main order of business … Yesterday was the first evening of the Robertsdale High School Summer Track Series. The track series is 3 meets over the summer to raise money to support the Robertsdale High School XC team. Rebecca is taking the kids to XC camp at UAB this summer. This is a huge step for the Robertsdale XC program and they are really excited to be able to go to an overnight camp this year! Overnight camp is not cheap and some of the families aren’t able to afford to send their kids, so Rebecca created a “camp scholarship” for any kids that need financial assistance and she is raising money this summer to help pay for those kids to be able to go to camp with their team.

For anyone local that is interested, there are two more events this summer as well.

June 23: (800, 1600 and 4 x 400 relay)
July 7: (400, DMR (distance medley relay) and Milk Mile)

If you aren’t local and want to help send a runner to camp, you can still donate!

There were three events yesterday: 400, 5000 and a 4 x 400 relay. The track meet was my speed workout for the week. Coach didn’t give me any goal paces. He just told me to have fun with it and give a good solid effort. Check and check!

We started out with the 400, which was a little tricky since we had the 5K afterwards looming over us. I wasn’t really sure how to approach the 400. I didn’t want to push too hard and have my legs be toast before we even started the 5K, but I wanted to push hard enough to get a respectable time. There was a girls heat and a guys heat for the 400 and I ended up running 77, which I was happy with. If I just could hold that pace for a mile (5:07), I’d be super happy 🙂

After the 400 it was time for the 5000. I had never run a 5K on a track before, so I was kind of excited to see how it would compare to a road 5K. There was only one heat for this, which worked out well. Rebecca called our splits out to us as we came through each lap, so I hardly even looked at my Garmin the entire time. Since we were running loops, there was also more cheering and support than a typical 5K. We ran by everyone 12 times, so we got lots of cheering!

Young Daniel and I settled in to about the same pace and we worked together for the first two miles. We stayed pretty consistent with a 5:59 and a 6:02.

After the second mile My Daniel hopped in to pace us for the last mile. [If this is confusing, “My Daniel” is my husband and “Young Daniel” is one of his training buddies that did Ragnar with us]. Having Daniel run the last mile with me gave me a boost and the last mile was my fastest at 5:53. According to my Garmin, my 5K time was 18:28. I am very pleased with that!

The last event was supposed to be a 4 X 800 relay, but everyone was pretty much done after the 5000, so Rebecca ended up switching it to a 4 X 400 relay. My legs and lungs were appreciative! I ran the 3rd leg for my team and I ran the 400 in 78. I was happy with that and even happier to be done. Whew! That was quite an intense Thursday evening workout.

There was a good turnout for the event and everyone had fun. It’s always nice to get a good workout in (with lots of training buddies) and support such a great cause.

I hope you enjoy your Friday! Does anyone have super fun plans this weekend?