I am just now thinking that one of the benefits of being a teacher is being able to really focus on training during the summer. It is almost like I get to pretend I am a professional runner!

The last post outlined my morning workouts – Tempo and Form Drills. It was getting warm by the time we were finishing up.

It was downright hot at noon as I headed over to Clay’s. I did a repeat of last Tuesdays strength workout:

After a relaxing afternoon I headed over to Joe Walker for the Tuesday Night HDR workout:

The 100 degree plus temperatures had dropped way down by 6 pm. Way down to about 95 degrees, that is! I think the heat had scared off quite a few of the normal crowd. Instead we had an ever increasing group of current and former Rosamond runners. Highland High Star (and former Hillview star) Annie Radigan also showed up with a few other Highland runners. Jeff Smith was there with Camden, David and Harry (Hillview to Highland new 9th graders.)  As we were warming up a group of girls came running up from the west side of the track. Erin Knight led them in with a “Mind if we join you Mr. Lister?”  They were a group of about 8 Quartz Hill girls.  It was fun having all these different High School (or recently in High School) runners there.

The usual crowd runners who were there included Neil, Lance, June, Alan, Jessie, Jessica Harper and Alan Brown. Brand new  to the club and to the Tuesday night running group was Elisa.

The workout was something new and different!  It was 3 sets of 4 x 90 seconds. The thing that made it fun and unusual and challenging was an out and back, short recovery format.  We all lined up on the start line and took off for 90s. Some runners made it well past a full lap. I was 5 or 6 meters short of 400 meters. At 90s I yelled “TIME”. Everyone stopped, jogged a little bit, and TURNED AROUND. They had 30s to return the exact spot on the track they had been at when I yelled “TIME.” After just 30s I yelled “GO” and we all headed back around the track in the opposite direction. Slowly I gained on those who had not gone as far as me. Some of the faster runners gained on me. Theoretically, we should have all made it back to the start line during this 90s Interval. Most did not make it. I was just a few meters short. Once again, after 90s I yelled “TIME” We had another 30s turn around recovery. Some of started on the start line, but many had not made close enough. So they started their next interval where they were. 90s intervals number 3 and 4 were just like 1 and 2.  After the 4th interval, back at the start line, we took a 3 minute recovery break. Ideally we would have jogged a lap during this 3 minute, but it was SO HOT that we stopped and cooled off with our water bottles.

As the 3 sets progressed some of the runners dropped out. Many of the runners slowed down. Some of us were able to consistently run the same 90s distance the whole time, however. It was a tough, but enjoyable workout.