Seriously... no kidding! I swear! It was in the fifth grade and it was the 100 yard dash on our track and field day at Fayetteville Elementary. I knew that I was going to be running that race some time in advance and I wanted to win so I trained. Really as a fifth grader I understood the concept of training. (The movie Rocky had influenced me I think and this was also the start of my wanting to be a boxer when I grew up phase.)
Of course I had no CLUE as to what to do so I asked my stepfather since he was the uber athlete what he advised and he told me if I wanted to win the 100 yard dash, then I'd better learn how to sprint 120 yards.
So imagine me on football field all alone running from the end of one end zone all the way to another for a couple of weekends. It wasn't fun, but he was right, I won by half a football field I think...
It is sort of a funny story but it is what was on my mind a lot this morning and today at lunchtime when I was doing my track workout. There are key fundamental elements missing out of my running bag of tricks and speed is definitely one of them. I don't relish the thought of spending hours doing nothing but running left turns but if the end justifies the means, then so be it. And just like I trusted Jack's sage advice in 1979, I will again rely on the concept that the hard work like I put in back then will pay out dividends. Back then it was a barren football field... today it is a windblown track up on the mesa.
800m warmup, 6x1000m with 400m rbi, and 800m cool down... 4:23, 4:18, 4:17, 4:25, 4:27, 4:23.
Not sure what happened with #4 and #5 except maybe the wind. It was ripping out of the south like always.
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