Tempo Run in Central Park

I am gasping – my heartbeat monitor reads 148 -- even though I’m just standing there listening to running coach Spencer Casey of Terrier Tri http://www.terriertri.com We’ve just done warm-up, strides (which I consider a full workout) and even though everyone else has already recovered, I’m still winded. I don’t like strides, but Spencer says they improve leg turnover and build muscle memory ---and God knows I need all the memory I can get – so I do them. The goal of a stride is to be quick, light, stay tall, and get your knees up high. My knees don’t like that. Nor do my hips.

“Okay, we’re doing a tempo run today,” he says. (Tempo running trains your body to sustain speed over distance). The Ironmen group are to run six miles, the Olympic and sprint will do 4 miles, then we are to meet back at the southern end of the Park for speed work. “It’s a hard workout,” Spencer says, “But it will make you tough.”

I head off early (because I need every extra second I can get), but soon the group has overtaken me on Cat Hill. Now I’m running alone -- as usual. Sometimes it’s hard to get motivated when you’re breathing like a panting dog and you wonder if Cat Hill will ever end. My heart rate monitor reads 152 – will I just crumple over and die if it gets any higher? I take a short cut through the Reservoir (because otherwise the entire team will be finished with speed work and I’ll just be arriving there). I run on the soft earth and see my heart rate has dropped. I tell myself, Come on, go faster.

I am moving like a slug – I wish it were over and I were now smiling at Derek, the vegetable juice guy on 52^nd and Lex, my treat after a workout. But this workout has just started, and I need a plan to keep me going. Usually, I can think of little Cody, the challenged 7-year-old athlete who never gives up but today, that doesn’t work http://www.challengedathletes.org So I try a new approach and tell myself: I don’t have sinus, I don’t have shin splints, no plantar fasciitis, I don’t have my usual hamstring attachment pain, and I have no cold or cough. So shut up and run. The day is perfect – 60s. My health is perfect. And so what if I’m gasping? Just ahead is a twenty-something girl with a blond pony-tail. She’s not running very fast. GO GET HER MARGIE. I do. I actually pass someone in the Park! HAPPINESS! Granted, two minutes later, she passes me back because I’m out of breath again, but so what? Isn’t life just a series of moments?