Cover Shoot

I'm on week 2 of doing speed work with my coach.  I hate it and love it all at the same time.  I mean, who doesn't enjoy a grueling workout at 5:30 in the morning? 

After getting a basic read on my abilities and how long I have until race day, my coach (John) decided to start me out on a rotation of different workouts.  The next 3 weeks I'm on hill rotation.  Crap.

Running hills is horrifying.  After warming up, we run up a 300 meter hill and aim to do it under 70 seconds.  Then we jog down and do it again... several times. 

Then, since I'm not puking by this point, John sends us to the track to do 400 meter repeats so we can see how much easier it feels.  He's all, "See!  Wasn't that so much easier?!?"  And in my head I'm like, "Don't puke on the track.  Don't puke on the track."

The fun part is, that all the while I'm trying to keep up with Britt (who is way faster than me), one of the guys with his fancy camera is being all paparazzi.  So now I've got all kinds of stuff going on in my head.  I'm all, "Run faster!  Don't puke!  Try to look like you don't want to puke!  Keep up with Britt or it will be documented on film that you are the slow one!  For goodness sake, don't puke on camera!"

After practice, John sent us this photo with a message that he's sure we'll be featured in the next issue of Sports Illustrated!  Only if they're doing a story on a girl's amazing ability to keep herself from puking.

I also get homework after practice.  John gave me some reading material so I know exactly why I'm doing speed work.  Homework?!?  Doesn't he know it is summer? 

In case you are wondering though, I read all my stuff and essentially the reason distance runners should do speed work is because it improves your running economy, which is how efficiently you use oxygen at a particular pace.  So you run really hard for short periods of time, and then when you go to run a marathon, your pace feels easier and you are able to sustain it for all those hours. 

Or something like that.

So I'll be running those hills for the next 3 weeks.  And trying not to puke.  Wish me luck!