Welcome back to altitude, lungs

Well, that was a bit of a shock!

I've hardly run since last Sunday's 10k at sea level in London's Hyde Park, but today was Back to Schedule day. I met Bobby McGee, Marci and fellow milers Kyle and Frank for an early-morning training session on the Pearl Street Mile course.

We run it a couple of times, one with Bobby stopping us at critical points to talk tactics and advise on what we should be doing at each point. Then we ran it hard. The most difficult thing for me is to try not to go out too fast, even if all I am doing is pace-making. Even in this rehearsal, I couldn't resist steaming into the first bend. It felt good. It was too fast. Even though I immediately throttled back, the damage had been done and my lungs never really recovered.

It felt easier doing 3 repeats of the 600m (or so) uphill side of the course. I found out that if I held a little back I could really blast the final 200m. It is SUCH a fantastic feeling to reach for that extra gear and find out it is still there :)

So... given that the journey door-to-door from London to Boulder took something like 15 hours and that I got in late Thursday night and so wasn't really ready for an early Saturday speed session at altitude... and given I am still dealing with all the well-known side-effects of longish-haul jet travel....I'm happy with how I coped. I am still WAY off the pace, but this workout fitted well into the new "race yourself fit" strategy. A few more sessions like this and I think I will show some dramatic improvement.

I find myself actually looking forward to Thursday evening's West End 3k, the second race of the Boulder Race Series. (I wimped out of the first race, the Uni Hill 2k). I think this is because I have turned some sort of psychological/emotional corner and can accept that I can race and get beaten and not care.

I've been getting terrific support from Runner NYC, Nev Johnson and Chase (Finish Strong) in response to my bleatings about my Hyde Park performance on another thread here. Chase has suggested using Derek Turnbull as a role model. This great masters athlete was a multiple world champion and world record holder famous, among other things, for banging out a 4:56.4 mile record -- at the age of 65!!! It took him a long time to get there, AND he used strategic races to sharpen himself up. Good enough for me.

* The really bad news about the Pearl Street Mile is that 5430 Sports, the new organizers, have dropped the headline event -- the Beauty and Beast Mile (men over 50, women over 40) and are going to lump us into one great heaving mass masters race. More about this in another blog, as we really need to get an email campaignj going to get this classic race reinstated.