Jenni in Training

Now I know why I never took up running in high school. When I read in the email that the workout for Tuesday would be “mile repeats” I could only take a stab in the dark about what that was. Repeating miles? But isn’t that kind of what long distance running is anyways? Well I quickly learned that it was more than just long distance running.

Team in Training has group runs every Tuesday night and Saturday morning - in both Central Park in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. I was able to get out of work and back to Brooklyn in time to train in Prospect Park instead of Central Park last night. Both Team in Training groups are awesome, but the Brooklyn group is a bit smaller, there are 80 of us compared to the 500 in Manhattan.

But back to the mile repeats. A mile repeat is when you run a mile “like your life depended on it” (to quote the head TNT coach Ramon), then you get a mile cool down. You do this three times. Based on what your time was for the fast mile, there is a chart that will tell you what your goal pace time should be for other training runs. It’s an awesome idea and I hope I will get better now that I know my times on these mile repeats, but let me tell you, it was not awesome when I was experiencing the mile repeats. When I got home I collapsed on the floor. My foot hurt, my hip hurt and I had a new pain - I had somehow strained my quad. I can’t remember the last time I strained my quad, it was probably in high school when I was playing soccer competitively and getting thrown all over the field.

So the mile repeat was in this part of Prospect Park that was set apart from the main path. I was running with three other people; Kim, Brian and Melka, all of who were faster than me. The first repeat I kept up pace with them but then quickly realized I was going to kill myself (I think this was when I strained my muscle) so the second repeat I slowed down. They took off and left me in the dust so there I am trotting along when I realized I would probably be running the rest of the miles alone. I got very sad because when you’re alone with no music it’s not as fun and seems to take forever. But, what happened next was amazing, and I realized this was why I joined Team in Training and this would be the best thing I got out of the whole program. As I was coming to the end of the second mile repeat, I turned the corner and there they were waiting for me, screaming my name to pick it up and finish strong. They waited for me! I got a surge of energy and sprinted to the end. It hurt, but I wasn’t going to let them down.

So I know over the next five months there will be times when it hurts, but I know that I’m not doing this alone. It’s a really great feeling. And my mile repeat times were 7:36; 8:07; 8:13. I was pretty proud of myself and my quad is already feeling better.