Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Track workout basics

I got a little track workout 101 today. My running group jogged a mile to the high school track where the Coastal Athletic Association (our local running club) hosts track workouts from the day after the Boston Marathon to the middle of October (26 weeks.) First, Mr "Bob" went over some track etiquette, which is good because frankly, except for high school marching band, I had never been on a track!!
Rule #1. Run counter-clockwise
Rule #2. Warm-up on the outside of the track (the outer lanes). The inner lanes are for workouts
Rule #3. Learn one word - "TRACK!" If you are doing a workout (in the inner lanes) and someone faster comes behind you, they will yell "Track" - this is your queue to MOVE OVER! - towards the right.

That's the basics....After we warmed up, we did a very simple interval workout.
- 3 laps(3x400m) of jogging on the curves and sprinting on the straights.

Simple but effective. I managed a 8 min/mi on one of my sprints! Now, I couldn't breathe after that, but it was fun!

Overall I ran 4 miles, 0.75 on the track, 3.25 on the road. A 11:43 average pace! Yeah!

1 comment:

Matt (No Meat Athlete) said...

I like track workouts! Except that soon after I started them a few months ago, my knee got injured (IT band syndrome). It was probably an overtraining injury, but the thought crept into my mind that maybe it was from ALWAYS running counterclockwise on the track. I know on small tracks in gyms they alternate directions each day, but I didn't do this on the big track. Have you heard of any warnings about running the same direction all the time?