200s are a pain in the butt

Had a good session on Saturday -- 200m x 10 after the obligatory warm-up run, drills and strides. I toodled over to the all-weather track at Fairview High as Boulder was being hit by thunderstorms. I timed it perfectly between rain storms. The Flatirons looked spectacularly mysterious, shrouded in mist. As ever, I count myself lucky to be able to do a track workout in such surroundings.

Got a bit carried away with the times -- at an average of 35 second each 200, with a couple of 34s, they were a little bit faster than the target times set from last week's Kosmin data (36.5). My excuse is that there was a very pretty high school girl doing 400s at the same time which motivated me to a) try to catch her and b) not be seen running like a doddering old fool.

As is usual in Boulder when there's a hint of "bad" weather, most people don't run. (Or ride. I presume they still swim!) So there were only the two of us on the track until I started my cool-down, when another girl arrived with her "minder". But tell me this, is this the strength or stupidity of youth?

It was only around 50 degrees yesterday, and it was raining on and off. Both these girls turned up wearing shorts. Neither of them did a warm-up, but pitched straight in. The first girl's concession was to rattle off a few strides and a couple of 200s before starting her series of 400s (conducted at my 200m pace). As soon as she finished she just grabbed her water bottle and walked off to her car; no cool-down, no stretches. Girl #2 arrived, sat on the wet track in shorts and did a handful of STATIC stretches, then got up and sashayed straight into her workout. Both of them looked like "proper" runners -- they both had spikes, for one thing. So presumably they have coaches? Maybe they are young and flexible enough to get away with it...or are they just in too much of a hurry?

Side-effect of chasing young girls: my glutes were very tight and sore today. Abby says it serves me right.