Running with People is Fun

AM: ~20 mins. core
4 miles
PM: 58 mins. + strides
8 miles

After a fun night out bowling with Sean, Tanya, Jeff and Paula last night (and yes I did break 100 in two out of our three games), I met the team this morning for their usual Monday core workout. Immediately following, Tanya and I took in a relaxed jaunt along a route that is commonly known in Charlotte as the "booty loop," which primarily follows the streets and neighborhoods in the Myers Park area adjacent to Queens. According to Jeff, this is called the booty loop in part because it is frequented by cyclists, who commonly ride by with their butts in the air, and in part because it is also frequented by the hot soccer moms/trophy wives of the neighborhood. We used the 30-minute jaunt to pretend that we too were rich trophy wives and not starving students.

In the afternoon we ventured to McAlpine for a nice recovery jaunt. I ran with Tanya, Devon (an 800m kid on the team) and Blake, one of Jeff's friends and Scott's athletes who came down from altitude for the week to train. Given that I was running with two dudes and with a girl who was significantly faster than me, I was worried that this "recovery" run might get a bit quick for my taste. Instead we kept things nice and easy and I felt very relaxed throughout.

After the run I put on a pair of spikes for the first time since high school to do some strides of various distances and speeds. In addition to the standard 100-meter sprints, Jeff also had me do some shorter 30-meter bursts and then I finished with a few longer strides that were approximately 150 meters. I'm convinced I'll be hobbling tomorrow but Jeff claims this will actually prevent soreness. We'll see.