N * 2Bits-ish

N * 2Bits-ish

Tuesday morning forecast at the Ballantyne Corp Park – 70 degrees with high humidity and lots of SPEED. No one could predict just how much SPEED would be found on this day.

At 0501, YHC pulled in to the lot with a perfect plan of what to accomplish. Unfortunately, there was a dead Garmin watch in the bag and a parking lot full of PAX ready to go. Wait, is it 0515 already or just a mess full of PAX chomping at the bit? Grab the cones, leave the dead Garmin, grab the Strava app on the phone, and let’s go for a prerun. Laying out the cones in 200m intervals is a challenge when the Strava app only shows tenths of a kilometer (after you change in on the run to show Meters instead of Feet), then when the phone screen goes off every 15sec, then when the rain makes it really hard to enter the unlock code or swipe every time. We’ll have to rely on feel or memory for some of these 200m intervals today. Feel is suspect and memory is getting bad. Q fail.

At 0517, return to the lot from the Prerun and find another mess full of PAX. Ditch the phone, grab the trusty Timex, and follow me. We’re late and have to run.

The THANG:

• Warm-up pace down into the Corporate Park. Let’s stop about 1 mile in (or someone with a watch that records distance tells YHC) and do some drills with walking on the toes, heels, high knees, butt kicks, and just plain strides. Must have been a lot of new guys this day because there sure was a lot of “why do we do this” mumble chatter.
• Let’s get started – 8 x 400m-ish Intervals at 1mile Race Pace (otherwise known as Repetition/ R-pace and the fastest that we run intervals at). Recovery is 400m-ish jog (usually back the way we came for about 200m and then back to finish of previous interval to start the next).
• Some intervals were uphill some of the way, some downhill part of the way, and the last one was full of uphill fun for the last 250m. A really delightful way to finish.
• 5mi cooldown back to COT.
• Total miles about 5.5.

The Moleskin:

• Quite an assembling of PAX on the day. Though we lost at least Outback to Bagpipe from the Pre-run, definitely a record for biggest Prerun ever. Guys that wake up to run at 0500 must just be crazy for the miles, enjoy the extra 2^nd F, or appreciate giving tired legs just a tad longer to warm-up before the hard stuff.
• Seeing a parking lot full of PAX for the main event is also a sign that something is going right at Swift. Much of the Indian Land crew is back and they dragged Pebbles along this time, Gerber was back again, ?did both Gumbo and Beaker show up to confuse YHC once again?, and a PAX wearing running garb shouting Geronimo at the start of each interval might have even been there.
• Pretty straightforward workout. Goal to keep the same pace and effort throughout, and it should be easier with the same distance (or at least close) each time. You should feel like you should be able to do more intervals at the end.
• Despite the temps, the rain, and the heavy shirts, only a couple shirtless today. Surely this would change as the workout goes on.
• Once the running started, it was hard to watch (meaning painful) Teddy and Haggis try to run down Frasier (did everyone hear he won the 10K at the Isabella Santos run last Saturday). Let’s just say they may have paid for it later. HoneyBee seems to have more sense these days (and he chased Frasier to 2^nd in that 10K) to let the horses run, but never gets too far out of sight.
• Tiger Rag (Kotters) must think all we do is run 400s at Swift.  We must have done this one 3 months ago when he last showed up.  Welcome back – see you after the new year!
• This group of PAX didn’t spread out that much today, but that’s usually the case isn’t it? Maybe it was the out & back recovery, but it was great to see PAX motivating others as they were finishing intervals. After all, the goal of Swift is to give everyone a workout that challenges them, but keeps everyone part of the workout. No man left behind. If you’re ever not getting that, please challenge YHC to make it better.
• Cobains for the late Backblast. Hopefully you can at least count on a PreBlast that is on time each Monday afternoon!