Thursday Track Report: Straddling The Seasons

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Written by Bwana Bwana

March 20, 2014

Bwana’s been running the Thursday Track Crew for over 20 years, and the last 15 of those years, since the MSF was built, we’ve been a year-round gig. We can go all year by occasionally taking advantage of the indoor track. But in all those years, there’s been no year where we’ve gone all winter without ever doing the track workout outdoors. Until this year. We had one more chance today, since the equinox did not occur until 12:57. But March was still much more lion-like than lamby today, with a stiff northwest wind and temperatures still in the 30s. And a good chunk of the Crew was going to be inside anyway getting photos taken for a Town and Gown story on the Marathoners For Medicine. So, inside it was again for Judd Michael, Lance Bland, Jaimie Wright, Andy Maguire, Mike Martin, Dean Capone, Mike Renz, Ken Davis, Costas Maranas, John Wilcock, Michael Goldfine, Meira Minard, Barb Kelsey, Dana Todd, Rob Peterson, Jeff Welsh, Kevin Becker, Rich Harter, Mike Casper, John Iceland, Ron Cunfer, and Marty Mazur in a workout that straddled two seasons.

Jaimie Wright, this year’s M4M coordinator, got to the track early for the photo shoot and looked the part of a professional Runner’s World model as she struck some comely runnerly poses worthy of a cover story. They chose the “wright” person, Jaimie being the official NVRC Ms. Photogenic. Andy Maguire will also be prominently featured. But as Dean (“No Relation To Al”) Capone, John (“Tinkerbell's Nightmare”) Wilcock, and Mike (“Argyles and a Beard”) Renz lined up for their pix, the photographer was seen tossing his spare memory cards and batteries in the nearest trash bin. Meanwhile, Bwana got the non-marathoners started on their workout: 6X400 at mile race pace with 200m rests.

Will we be outside next week? We can hope. We’re all pretty sick of track hack…

Thursday Track Report: March Brackets

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Written by Bwana Bwana

March 6, 2014

While warming up at the track, Bwana mused that he may have run over 100 miles indoors so far this year, and possibly even more miles than he’s run outdoors. (When he got back to his running log, he found that he’d figured right.) It’s been that kind of winter. And with temperatures in the mid-20s and an outdoor track still covered in snow, it looked like yet another indoor day as Judd Michael, Mark Fedkin, George Lesieutre, Costas Maranas, Marty Klanchar, Alex Wouden, Andy Maguire, Jaimie Wright, Mike Renz, Ron Cunfer, Lee Culver, Mike Martin, Jim Laudermilch, Dana Todd, Jeff Welsh, Rob Peterson, Joe Bollinger, Rich Harter, David Lloyd, and Marty Mazur headed for the track. But Bwana has been turning that situation to his advantage as much as possible. If it’s hard to get lots of miles in on the indoor track (boring!), at least make them quality miles. So, besides the Thursday Track workout, Bwana has been doing a variety of fartlek and pace workouts.
 
It looks like a few of Bwana’s Crew have been getting in some quality workouts this winter, despite the weather. A few of the marathoners were doing lots of longer reps, so Bwana called a workout that followed their lead: The 3-4-4-3 March Bracket workout. Run 3 laps in lane 5 at close to your mile race pace. Take a lap rest, then do 4 laps in lane 5 at the same pace. Then kick it up by moving out to lane 6 and doing 4 laps there in as good a time or better than your 4 in lane 5. After another lap rest, top it off by doing 3 laps in lane 6 with all you’ve got left! These reps bracket 800 meters, so you’re essentially doing something like 4X800, but with a little speed and distance variation.

The whole Crew turned in a great workout. David Lloyd is getting a lot faster and needing much less rest to keep a consistent workout going. And Joe Bollinger liked his reps so much that he didn’t realize he was “done” and did a whole ‘nother 3 lapper!  And like I said earlier, some of the marathoners were doing a high volume of long reps. George ran 5X1K. Jaimie was doing 7X4 laps in lane 4. Jaimie may have had the best workout of anyone. She didn’t realize just how much more 4 laps in lane 4 (882 m) is than 4 laps in lane 1 (800 m). So she was going along cranking out her “800s” in 3:10-3:15 thinking “Why is this so HARD?” Well, if you do the math, she was running around 2:55 for an 800, that’s why!

Thursday Track Report: I Shot An Arrow Into The Air

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Written by Bwana Bwana

March 13, 2014

Winter is trying to throw as much craziness at us as it can as its days dwindle. It’s tried pretty much every arrow in its quiver, from snow, to ice, to nice warm days where we still had to run inside due to the snow covered track. This time, Winter tried a literal arrow: when the Crew of Judd Michael, Bob Cornwall, Michael Goldfine, Dean Capone, Mike Renz, John Wilcock, David Lloyd, Ron Cunfer, Sara Noss, and Marty Mazur entered the Multi-Sport Facility, they saw that the track was closed due to a PA Game Commission archery competition! Come on, guys! If we want to get shot at, we can just show up at one of Bwana’s Game Lands trail runs!

Jaimie Wright was also at the track, and we figured she’d be the one person there who could dodge the arrows given how she’d burned up the track at last week’s workout. All of us but Jaimie decided to drive over to Rec Hall and use the track there (for the second workout this year!). Bwana has no idea if anyone else showed up at the MSF and just went home when they found it was closed. At Rec Hall, the workout was simple: 1 mile warm-up followed by two miles at near race pace, then a cool down jog.

Well, the outdoor track is clear of snow and ice. The weather for this coming Thursday looks to be…well, maybe OK! Could it be our first outdoor workout since December? We’ll see if Accuweather’s prediction is a bulls-eye.

Thursday Track Report: Preppers

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Written by Bwana Bwana

February 27, 2014

Some people took the fact that Bwana was *preparing* for Spring last week by giving the end-of-season benchmark workout maybe a little early as a promise that Spring would be here this week. Such babes in the proverbial woods! But Bwana’s a prepper. Getting ready for when the balloon goes up, for TEOTWAWKI. He doesn’t have time for people who don’t know enough to have at least 500 gallons of water, a generator, gas to run it, a stash of pre-64 coins, and 50 pounds of grain and thousand rounds of pain. Does he have to tell you how to read a calendar? How to tie your shoes? Well, it seems the answer is, unfortunately, yes. Tom Cali, Judd Michael, Lance Bland, Mark Fedkin, Marty Klanchar, George Lesieutre, Michael Goldfine, Meira Minard, Jon Thurley, Mike Renz, John Iceland, Ford McNutt, John Wilcock, Joe Bollinger, David Lloyd, Dana Todd, Jim Laudermilch, and Marty Mazur at least knew enough to go to the *indoor* track as fiercely cold wins whipped around outside.

Bwana decided that some of the Crew needed some preppin’. Not George L., who already had the right idea, doing his own marathon prep workout of 6X1200 at a pace that would have embarrassed the rest of us doing shorter reps. Not Tom Cali, who was polishing his pre-LA Marathon prep (10 days to go!). But the rest, all  hoping for spring and a good 5K out of the box, or maybe some speed in their legs at Boston. They needed someone to tell them what to do next. So Bwana called 6X400 with about 250m rest between. Longer rest than our usual low recovery stuff, but that just means you’re supposed to go a little faster each rep. Did the group get it? We’ll know when Spring actually gets here!

OK, so the longest month of the year is pretty much over. March will be here on Saturday. And the next day…another snow storm! But by the end of the month…we can only hope…well, whatever it ends up being, be prepared!