A family afternoon at the oval

My sister Jill and I went to the Oak Bay High School track for a workout this afternoon, and we had a great run. We warmed up together around the surrounding neighbourhood and then headed back to the Jack Wallace Memorial Track. I was thinking that Jack Wallace would probably prefer to have the "Memorial" removed from his eponymous oval, but alas there it is......

I did 3X2K Tempo intervals with a 200m jog in between sets, and ended up doing the 2K cruise intervals in the fastest I've done for this workout. Times for each: 7:44, 7:37, 7:47. Cosidering that I was striving for a 7:46 for each, (which I've never done in training); I was very surprised. So surprised in fact that I started having suspicions that maybe the track wasn't a true 400m oval. You see, this track has a total of 8 lanes, but the first 3 are only there for 100m, so I was running in lane 4, which I supposed to be the "real" lane 1. Then again, maybe I just had a really good day, and all the stars aligned. After thinking about it, I'll go with the latter scenario, as it's probably best for my confidence. I did 4 strides on the infield after the tempo work and a 1k cooldown, so a total of ~9K today.

One thing I failed to mention in yesterday's post are the two new pairs of shoes I bought at Frontrunners, a great running store in Victoria. I bought a pair of trainers: Brooks Glycerine 4's, which I wore today for my tempo run and don't know how much credit I should give them for my good times.

I also made what is essentially an indulgence purchase, but I suppose I can rationalize it if I try hard enough. I now own a pair of New Balance track spikes. I'm not particularly fast on the track by any means, but they're something I've wanted to try for some time. I'll put them on when I'm doing reps at the track; and maybe, just maybe, running in them will improve my form for the longer distances, perhaps helping with pushoff, turnover, cadence. See, there's the rationalizations. They should be very cool though when I get to dig them into the track.


"Running is a lot like life. Only 10 percent of it is exciting. 90 percent of it is slog and drudge."
- Dave Bedford, English distance runner who occasionally put in 200 miles a week in training