1 mile trial run

Summer Track a.m. Tuesday’s with the Heartbreakers has begun. Since I was arrived way before the 6:34a.m. start time I decided to run at least a mile to let me body wake up and stretch. At 5:45 a.m. it’s bright and warm out. I got a nice mile in along the charles river. I saw several people rowing away on the river with such ease and grace. It makes me want to learn how to row.- one day maybe

When I returned to the track I had a good sweat going and we hadn’t even started. Today was the 1 mile trial run. We were put in groups and timed on our mile.

NO LONGER BLUE

I’m always team Blue. Today, the colors were arranged by mile time. Red was 8:25min min/mile time +. The Blue group was a 7:25min/mile runners. The rest of the colors were in the 5min range.- That’s not normal or cool. But I was down for the red. That was my only option. Each color had a pacer who would lead for 2 laps around the field. The next two would be on us.

The first team to go was red. Before we started all of that, we did our normal 8 min pre-run, active stretches, and speed runs. In this process lots of sweat came about.

Side note: I did see one of my BGR members Soleil this morning. She wasn’t late and she was in the team red group. She was funny because she freaked out knowing we both were in the same team. I told her there are different levels of read.

The Plan is the go slow the first lap, second lap find you pace/tempo, third lap- hold it, fourth lap- let it all go.

I actually felt good and comfortable. Our pacer was going an 8:10 min/mile and I needed to hang back because I wouldn’t be able to maintain that for 4 miles.

When I finished my time was 8:35 min/mile. Clearly when I’m pushed and properly trained, I can run well.

RUNNING DIVIDE

Today, there were three black women who ran. I always feel as if I’m in two different worlds but I know how to navigate and crow them. Today’s trackwork was very different than my Saturday trackworks.

One is at MIT, many people are biking. The other is at Madison Park in Roxbury and no one road bikes

Heartbreakers partner with Nike and they had money and other endorsements for business.

Black Grils Run, doesn’t have corporate investments ( at least locally) and the ladies do not all the over priced fantasy running attire, as many of the heartbreakers women did.

MIT track is functional and fixed up, Madison park needs to be fix.

On so many levels the running community represents society and many of the inequalities around it from our social identities, neighborhoods, access, and experiences, there is no “ right way” to be a runner. From social media, one is lead to believe the false sense that there is one kind( type of ) runner.