For the last four years (I think), MCRRC has offered a Speed Development Program every winter. Tom Brennan, the volunteer Program Director, developed the program to improve his own speed, and invited friends along that first year just so he wouldn’t have to run alone in the cold and dark. Then he decided to open it up to his fellow MCRRC members, and this year the program is up to a thundering 175 people. The $35 fee gets you 15 weeks of training, and includes registration for the 'goal race', the Pike’s Peak 10K in April.
To be eligible, you have to be an MCRRC member, be able to run four miles, and have run in at least one road race. You fill in some information when you register online, like how often and how fast you run, and Tom uses that to put everyone in groups. There are Red, White and Blue training programs, based on weekly mileage, and each group is further subdivided into pace groups. I’ve been running since 1988, but it’s been off and on, and only in clement weather, and usually around 3 miles, and not often recently, so for the last 2 years I probably average something like .7 miles per week, and that landed me squarely in the remedial Red group, with a 12-minute mile division.
We’re supposed to kick off the program with 12-15 miles a week, and work our way up to 22. Tom developed training schedules for the three programs and he posted them online in our Yahoo! group. Mine includes four runs a week, with Tuesdays on the track, Wednesday easy runs on our own, Thursday runs on our own or with MCRRC’s weekly run in Rockville, and Saturday long runs either at Ken-Gar or on the Capital Crescent Trail. A few of the weekend runs are substituted with races, most of which are free to members. That at-least-one-road-race was exactly one for me before Saturday, so this speed development program will bring me up to six.
The track we use on Tuesday nights is at Gaithersburg High School, and we meet at 6:30, which means a whole lotta traffic on 270. It took about 45 to get out there compared to 15 coming home. That's an hour of driving for about 45 minutes of running, but it’s worth it for those of us who could use some help pushing ourselves, and a little guidance on how to do it.
The first track workout was pretty easy, even for me: a one-mile warm-up, followed by some butt-kicks, followed (for the Reds) by a two-mile easy run. The Blues and Whites got to run some sprints, but the Reds have to wait until we build up our miles, which fine by me. It was nice just to be outside in the fresh air at night with a bunch of people working to get better at something. I can’t say it feels like a community, but it does have an element of satsang—an assembly of aspirants, a gathering of seekers.
I skipped the Wednesday easy run and went for four miles on Thursday. I didn't want to second guess Tom, but three runs in the first week seemed like enough to me, and I try to observe ahimsa (non-violence), at least with myself. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t pushing hard on Thursday. I waited for the sunniest, warmest hour I could and made my way through downtown to the Capital Crescent Trail. I listened to my podcasts, in spite of the runner snobs who condemn it, and pushed unhappily past the third mile to the end of the fourth. It’s very different, believe it or not; that fourth mile was hard.
Friday, I set out to lengthen the muscles I shortened, and I went to Neva Ingalls's Tapas Flow class at Thrive in Rockville. She’s strong as hell, with an obvious dance background and an enviable uttanasana and dhanurasana (if envy were allowed), and her class was invigorating and challenging and hot, just like the description promises. We rocked out to The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and The Doors, through a fluid warm-up, three intense standing sequences, full of balancing and twisting, and backbending with a strap, which I love, and then we brought it home with some classic inversions, and, finally, this amazing quote:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of god. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
(I found the quote online, attributed by some to Nelson Mandela and by others to Marianne Williamson. But regardless, “playing small does not serve the world” is an amazing sentiment to have floating around out there.)
Saturday of Week 1 was spent at one of the aforementioned races, the Shooting Starr 5M. Before the race, everyone was abuzz over how hilly the course was, and I had to enlist my Shuffle to avoid a panic. I was mesmerized by the variety of ages, fitness levels, bodies, running gear, attitudes. The race started unceremoniously and most of the runners seemed to pull away from me, and I resisted the impulse to check behind me to see if anyone was actually there. By mile two of the out-and-back course, people began passing me on their way in. By mile four I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t do that, and I also wanted to sprint to pick up some time, but I didn’t have it in me, so I gutted it out and came in near the top of the second half of the 106 women in the race (that's the best spin I've been able to put on it so far), and I graduated to a faster pace group, and I ate my free bagel on the way home.
So I can’t say I did well, exactly, except that I did it, and that’s exactly great. I was shot for the rest of the day—spent like I haven’t been in ages—and I lost most of Sunday, too, to the Food Network, including two 30 Minute Meals and two Everyday Italian. But I’m trying to shine, right?
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