Friday, October 14, 2011

Sprints

I tutored until 8 tonight, and after having nearly run into a rattlesnake in the dark on Westridge a few nights ago (a nice but somewhat busy-bodyish woman assisted me; lighting up the road and pointing out the snake on the side, before chiding me for not having a light in a not totally friendly way. Although I suppose she had just pretty compellingly demonstrated the need for a light. I've ordered one. Anyway.) decided to avoid the mountainous night and head to the Drake Outdoor Track at UCLA, which Yelp told me was open to the public. It was, although I accidentally parked a twenty-minute walk away.

The UCLA undergrad scene is a whole other post. Basically, I was walking around seriously reconsidering the wisdom of 17-year old James' decision to go to college on the East Coast.

But the point of this purportedly brief post: sprints. I train in medium distances (like 7 to 12 miles), intervals (2:30 fast; 2:30 slow), and shorter distances (4-5 miles, fast). I haven't done sprints in years. It is amazingly different. First of all, it is freaking awesome to not be managing yourself at all: to know that your only job is to go absolutely as fast as you can. I found I couldn't quite keep that mentality for a quarter-mile, but I could for anything sub-0.2 miles. It also hurts; when I launched into the first real spring, my knee immediately started screaming bloody murder. I'm almost certain this isn't indicative of some problem (my knee is indeed stupid, but it's just stupid), and was simply my body not having any sense of or adjustment to this crazy kind of movement where you're belting forward. Stride is all different: my temptation was to run long, but I'm pretty sure I was faster striking short and fast. Lastly, it just feels bad-ass and wonderful: you are tearing past everyone else on the track and just _moving_. Also, you can totally cash yourself out in less than 30 minutes.

So there you go: sprint update! More tk.