Press to Detonate

If you're tuning into The Daily Grind today and you're someone who actually enjoys speedwork, then I'll ask that you please stop reading here, and follow this link. For all others, lets just commiserate about this for a bit. Because as I was cooling down on my way back from the track this afternoon, I had to once again ask myself: "Self, why in God's name do we do this?"

The track is about 2 miles from my house, so on a speedwork day, I run out my front door and warm up from here to there before I really start to apply the pressure. Once I'm at the track and stretched out, the intervals begin. And on a day like today, I try to convince myself that I'm somewhat fortunate, as the workout consisted of a series of descending intervals: 2x1200, 2x800, 4x400, and 4x200. I say "fortunate," as descending blocks are somewhat "easier" to tackle mentally with each block being shorter than the previous. But let's face it, there's really not one thing that can be considered easy about speedwork - It's always extremely hot on the track, it's boring as hell going 'round and 'round in circles for your entire workout, and worst of all, it's a complete challenge to enthusiastically start each interval when you're out there by yourself, with nothing but the beep of your lap button to keep you company. Sigh.

On the plus side, at least I can take comfort in knowing I put these miles in, and as I've seen in the past, I'm sure the benefits of workouts like this will become clear to me on race day.