First Track

You live all week with your head in the sand, searching for a grain of truth - or just checking things off the list. Yet you've got a Mona Lisa smile because in your pocket is your training plan. And on that training plan you've got intervals. For Wednesday.

Wednesday dawns and you look at the list of what must be done before you can start living: School, Meeting, then Intervals. The weather says chance of thunderstorms so you pack two sets of clothes - one set for the track (that you fervently hope to use), and one set for the treadmill (that have been used plenty already).

You toil through the day, engaged in what's meaningful at the moment - but every once in a while lifting your head high enough out of that sand to get a shiver of excitement. Of anticipation. First night on the track.

Finally the students have tumbled out the bus doors. An x on the list. Then it's the interminable meeting where, among other matters of earth-shattering importance, you debate and finally decide on precisely how to spend $6. Crucial meeting - check.

At last you can change into your track clothes. Because it will be the track. Come what may. You have waited through winter's snow and a bout with an edgy heel. Even if you have to battle thunder and lightning, tonight's intervals will be waged on the track.

And so it is.

800 warm-up: You wish you had more pores on your body. To soak it all up. On the track in spring with puddles of water pooling around you, dense air clothing you, birds chirping and the wind whipping across the marsh - bringing spring to your nostrils. More pores needed.

And then it's go time...

1:33 for 400 #1 - There are no more thoughts of spring or birds or even life. This is it. What you've been waiting for. Your legs respond to the momentous occasion and charge like they've been doing it forever.
2:25 Recovery 400 -You smile cuz you know it is good and you have done well.

1:33 for 400 #2 - Your legs feel high and springy, juiced and ready.
2:23 Recovery 400 - You decide that next set your recovery will be shorter because you're ready for another interval at 200.

1:36 for 400 #3 - You remember that you wheeze and your chest hurts when you run fast. You learn things that you never knew before about running. The way your heel strikes when you run, the way your arms pump and reach, the way your quads recoil and spring, all these details reach your conscious mind with a clarity that shoves all else out of the world. There is only you. You. And Running.
1:16 Recovery 200 - It dawns on you: recovery jogs feel good.

1:36 for 400 #4 - You start out strong but then realize you have blown your wad by 50 meters. You start to rationalize and wonder how fast you really should be running these. Is it necessary to push this hard? Doesn't my training plan say to run these at a 5K pace? That certainly is much slower than this.
1:19 Recovery 200 - You get a little tiffed at yourself because you know exactly where those seconds went. You let your legs slow down a little bit while you were diverting your big brain with pacing thoughts.

1:37 for 400 #5 - Over halfway!! You're happy again just to be out here doing it. A bit of sun even peeks out of the clouds.
1:23 Recovery 200 - You start to cough but stop yourself when it feels like a part of you may come up and have to be spat out. After all, you have vowed to leave nothing on the track tonight. Lung included.

1:37 for 400 #6 - You decide that intervals are as tough as you remembered - only worse.
1:33 Recovery 200

1:39 for 400 #7 - Your legs feel fast. In the initial burst, you think, "Shiiit, I'm just getting warmed up!" Then you reach about 40 meters. PUSH is the name of the game for the remaining 360.
1:29 Recovery 200 - You hear the first peal of thunder and chuckle, "Yep, it's that kind of day." Seven down, one to go, one to go...

1:37 for 400 #8 - You know it's number 8, the finale. The last one that you want to last - yet can't wait for to be over. You give it all you've got.

6:04 for Cooldown 800
As soon as you can breathe again, you look around and down - revering the track, thanking it, thanking your legs, the sky, the clouds, the birds, your running shoes... This is what all the waiting was for. Your bliss is nonpareil.

And then you start to wonder... What could I do next time? You give the track a last reverent look and know from the bottom of your soul that this is not good-bye, but a definite...

See you later.