The track discipline: one or more lap at a time.

What a journey to rebuild after last year's 7-month forced break off running... Without even having to check on past blogs or my running log, I still remember the ease and excitement of running tempo runs of 20 miles or even 50K at the track. 20-15 years ago, I had made a habit of going to the track on Tuesdays and Thursday, before 6 am, to meet with Bob and Jeremy for a diligent track workout. Then travels, early business meetings, heavy racing, a pandemic, other priorities and, unfortunately, injuries, took over and got me off the... track, literally speaking!

When I resumed running back in September, I was so slow and the knee was so painful that it didn't seem right to rush to the track. Yet, I ran 25K at our local high school at the end of September, then a marathon in October and another one in November. Encourage by the progress in January, I pinged Bob and we've met a few times on Sunday morning since. While I'm pretty good at putting pressure on myself and not needed outside motivation to work harder, having Bob to alternate miles in tempo runs helps a lot!

2 weeks ago, we ran a 1:07:44 10-miler (6:46 min/mile). For the first 6 miles, my miles were close to 7 minutes while Bob's were closer to 6:45. Bob skipped a few laps at the end but I was able to pick-up the pace, ending with 6:37 and 6:26 miles.

This Sunday, Bob was traveling so I was by myself and decided to at least do 10 miles, or more as long as I could stay below 7 min/mile. It was quite windy, making the exercise more challenging, especially alone. I had a 14-second cushion at the 10-mile mark so continued for a few miles. Clocked 1:31:30 at the half-marathon mark, hesitated to keep pushing for 25K but felt it was enough for a workout.

I can't emphasize enough how good it is to run at the track, if you have the luxury of having one accessible to you. It's safe, it's perfectly flat and it gets rid of the dangers and distractions of running along and across streets, or even trails (although I'm a big fan of cross training on trails of course). Having the ability to check on or adjust your pace by a second or two every lap, that is every quarter of a mile, teaches you to control your pace like a machine. Being in a controlled environment, it's also easy to adjust distance based on your form or will power. Not advocating to do all your running on a track but the track is the best and optimal setup to consciously work on your pace. On my default go-to loop in my neighborhood, I don't work as hard as at the track.

Anyway, everybody has different motivations to run. But if you want to run faster, then make sure to visit the track regularly. Well, not just visit, but log laps while pushing the pace! All the best!