Starting the 2011 new year running out of the gate

To start off the new year, a few weeks ago I had the distinct pleasure of joining up with my running team and doing a speed workout outdoors.  What was unique about this occasion was that it was the first time I had ever done a track workout in freezing, subzero temperatures.  (When I ran track in high school, whenever the temperature outside was too cold, we would move our speed workouts indoors.  A fun workout at the time was doing sprints up the school staircase, always careful not to trip.)  It was also the first time I had trained on a track in many, many years.  The workout took place at McCarran park, a park that straddles the Brooklyn-Queens border not far from the East River and the Brooklyn-Queens expressway.  Although I have passed literally thousands of times over the expressway, I had never been to that part of the city.  Despite having grown up here in the city, there are still places I have never visited.  Now I can cross one more place off that list.

The workout was challenging, consisting of several timed quarters around the track and finishing with a half mile time trial; the weather certainly did not help.  The track was icy in most lanes and I had to slow down slightly in some sections of the inner most lane in order to avoid slipping and falling.  Many other team members are already in marathon shape so the workout was probably not strenuous for them.  I admire their conditioning.  For me however, running outdoors in training mode seemed like a long time ago.  In recent times, I have done most of my running on the treadmill at my gym.  Nothing to report to the Guiness Book of World Records, but the one glimmer of hope during the evening was that I did run one quarter in around 90 seconds.   We all have to start (or restart) from somewhere, but meanwhile I hope to build on that time.  I can't wait for warmer weather to return so that I can run outdoors on a more regular basis.  I'm not a penguin and training in subzero temperatures is not recommended for us warm blooded folks. In the face of the cold weather, I still concluded the evening with a sense of accomplishment and look forward to future runs and races with the team.