Fall Speedfest, Week 1 of 18: Let the Fall Season Commence!

Well, I went back to the track for the first time in four months this evening, so I suppose that means my fall season is underway!

I am always a little nervous about the first track workout of a training cycle. This time around it's been four months since I cajoled my legs into running anything faster than marathon pace and it's always interesting to see how they respond. The workout looked short and easy on paper (as the first workout of a season should), just two sets of 3 x 300m with a 100m jog, and a 400m jog between the two sets. Looking at the pace at first I thought, "Is that right? I feel like I run 300m's faster than that." But sure enough once I got out on the track, nope! Currently 1:10 300m's is *plenty* fast enough. I hit the pace or slightly faster every time but I certainly wasn't slacking. Patience, grasshopper!

Track workout #1: Survived!

FALL SPEEDFEST 2018:

• Sunday 9/2 - Race to the End of Summer 10K (San Jose).
• Sunday 9/9 - Golden Gate Park Open 6K (San Francisco).
• Sunday 9/16 - Alameda Running Festival 5K or 10K (Alameda).
• Saturday 9/22 - Garin Park XC Challenge 5K (Hayward).
• Sunday 9/30 - John Lawson Tamalpa Challenge 4.25 miles (San Rafael).
• Sunday 10/7 - Rock 'N Roll San Jose Half (San Jose).
• Saturday 10/27 - Excelsior Challenge 5K (Brisbane). -OR-
• Sunday 10/28 - OktobeRun 5K (Redwood City). I really want to run both of these races but probably won't, so I'm holding off on making a decision.
• Sunday 11/18 - Pacific Association XC Championships 4 miles (San Francisco).
• Thursday 11/22 - Oakland Turkey Trot 5K (Oakland).
• Sunday 12/9 - Santa Skivvies Run (1.3 miles) (San Francisco).
• Sunday 12/16 - Silicon Valley Santa Run 5K (San Jose).

That makes this an 18 week season. I know that, tucked way down in the recess of my brain, is some knowledge/wisdom about how you race short, fast things multiple times a month. It's been a while, though, so I hope it comes floating up to the surface sometime soon. (Like...any minute now would be cool.)

The nice thing about training for short, fast stuff, though, is that you don't necessarily have to commit to particular races ahead of time. I'm sure that life will happen and I'll end missing a couple of these, which is totally fine. Currently I'm only officially registered for Race to the End of Summer and RNR SJ, so we'll see what makes sense as far as the other stuff goes. (I have no idea if any of the others tend to fill up....I guess I should probably figure that out....Also figure out if I need an active USATF card to run in the PA XC races as I haven't had one of those in years...)