Sprint 8

Okay, right, what was I thinking this time? I don't know, I really don't know. The conversation yesterday went something like,

"Hey, want to go for a short morning hike tomorrow morning?"

"Want to do a sprint 8 with me instead?"

"Uh, I'd look like a dork."

"I won't notice. I'll be so far in front of you, I won't see you."

"Uh, 16 minutes for a full workout instead of 2 hours?"

"Does that mean yes?"

Okay, maybe not really, but it easily could have, because I was certainly thinking I'd look like a dork. I haven't sprinted farther than 50 yards in the last two months, and haven't run much more than a mile either. Out of shape would be an understatement, especially with the 24 hours of sitting in the last 48.

But, hey, okay, I'm game for trying to run a mile in 4 minutes, spread over 16, why not.

So, this morning at 11 am, I looked at my watch and realized I had completely forgotten about the arrangements I had made with Andy to run myself into the ground at 9 am this morning, while he ran gazelle like way far in front of me. I immediately started cursing up a storm, such that Kris looked at me aghast. Hey, wait a second, I thought, Kris is with me, at 11 am on a Wednesday? One big gut-busting wrench later, and I pulled myself out of the nightmare I was having, looked up at the ceiling and found out it was only 7:43. Another hour plus before the sprints! Yay!

My biggest worry about most outings is that I'll have an urge to use the bathroom, and there will be no bathroom in sight. For boys, eh, whatever, they stand in a corner of a field and pee. Sometimes don't even move that far. Girls, on the other hand, squat, until they learn to pee standing up, which isn't as difficult as it sounds.

I arrived at the field with enough time to worry about having to pee, find a port-a-potty, walk over to said port-a-potty, find said port-a-potty locked, and walk back to my car before Andy showed up. To say I was nervous about this workout would be an understatement. SIgh.

So, Andy showed up, played with the dogs for a bit. I dodged Blue during that bit, finally removing layers and steadying myself for the runs.

The Sprint 8 workout consists of 8 reps of sprint hard for 30 seconds, rest for 1:30 (and that's one minute and thirty seconds, not one hour and thirty minutes). Andy had a GPS clock unit that not only told you where you were and how fast you were moving, but also had a timer mechanism that you could set to 8 :30 + 1:30 laps AND ding at you at the end cheerfully! What a joy! He let me carry the GPS unit, since he knew about how far he was running, about, and I could just call out to him when the timer went off.

He offered to run criss-cross on the field, so as to minimize my overwhelming feelings of dork, but I declined. Something about running at someone makes it worse that running behind someone. Something about lack of eyes in the back of their heads, maybe?

So, we start with the first run. I feel nothing as I'm running. The ground is soft, I run well. I finish 25, maybe 30 yards behind Andy when the ding ding ding ding ding DING! finishes, and I'm good with that run. I'm not breathing too heavy, didn't really notice if that one was hard, I'm good.

1:30 later, that 1:30 feeling like 20 seconds, we're running back the way we just came. The field is about 240 yards long, so we have plenty of room to run. At the end of this sprint, I walk to Andy's starting point, and notice a trend starting: Andy's run out is nearly the same distance as his run back. By "nearly" I mean within a few yards. MY distances become increasingly shorter, to the point where I'm probably 60, maybe 80 yards behind Andy when he finishes. By the six sprint, I can't feel my legs. I'm moving my arms, I'm moving my legs. Neither is willing to move any faster than they're going, and they aren't going very fast.

Hello, dorkdom.

Andy's good natured about it, even though I'm barely walking back to his starting point by the time the GPS unit goes ding ding ding ding ding GO! My legs are starting to feel the leaden feeling they have at 350 meters of a 400 meter race, oh back in college. I think this is one of the points of workout, though, to hit the "lactic threshold" and keep running past.

But, I don't know. I just know that I'm out of shape, that I'm going to be sore tonight.

I hear the call of the hot tub already, and it's not even 11 am.