Before I mention anything about track, Bill asked me today if I’d ever seen this video on YouTube about these Brits who chase a roll of cheese down a hill. Now I ask you – do they win the cheese? And why in the world would you want to eat a bunch of cheese that’s already rolled down a grassy and dirty hill? It looks like Brie to me, but I hate Brie.
Ok, you decide the motivation for this – but I think it’s hilarious. Note the people in blue at the bottom of the hill – their sole job is to stop people when they get to the bottom of the hill by tackling them. I’m embedding two videos – on the first one, I honestly can’t understand one word of what the hell they are saying! 🙂
It looks like this is a yearly event. All I can say is, WTF?!
Some of these people seriously get some speed going down this hill!
Ok, so track workout tonight:
- 8 X 200s (you know I love these)
- 4 X 400s (beginning to love them)
- 2 x 800s (not a great lover of these, but I’ll do them)
We’re still running in what I’d consider a large pack but I’ve found a way to start on the inside lane and then just stay in it pretty much the whole way. After the first one, I was pretty flattered – a few people said, “you take the inside lane, you’re fast!” I just love 200s, especially when they start on a straightaway because I’ve never met a straightaway I’ve not loved. However, it was only after we’d done about 5 of them that the assistant coach said “you should ease into the speed as you’re running, rather than just bolting up full speed ahead” (or something to that effect. We were all like, really? Maura and I had been bolting out there as fast as we could go from the get-go.
Oh, and I digress here for a second. Maura is someone I ran with a few times over the winter. Has anyone ever seen a real-life gazelle run? Or a doe? They’re completely graceful and it looks like they weigh absolutely nothing when their feet hit the ground. That’s how Maura runs. She said that that morning she had not been sure she could make it to practice. So she ran. Seven miles. Then came to track practice. I envy her. She’s beautiful, she’s extremely graceful and she’s fast. She makes it look so effortless. Ok, I want to emulate her – that sounds much better than envy, don’t you think?
Anyway, I am happy to say most of my 200s were in the low to mid 40s with one (or possibly two?) around 39-40 seconds. If they’d been at the end, I think I’d have tried even harder, but I knew those other intervals were still out there hanging over my head. I’ve decided though, when running them, I think I need to stop looking at my watch halfway through. It freaked me out to look down at my watch and see 15 seconds after the first 100. My mind says “there’s no way you can keep up this pace the entire way.” And I feel like I should slow down at that point to make it all the way through the workout. But it was very cool to start running, and then just find myself running alone at the lead a few times. I’m not trying to show off, but I do love the 200s! Why couldn’t there be a 200 meter race for people like me?? 🙂
Karen and I noticed one thing tonight, and it’s a good thing, I think. We tried to keep our 400s at 2 minutes, or at what we thought would be our 5K pace. But we ended up doing them at something like 1:53-1:55, and they didn’t even feel that bad, to me anyway.
And the 800s – we were supposed to do them at a pace that we could run for an hour for. So that would likely be a 10 minute mile for me? Or somewhere in the 9ish range? Well, we did them in 4:14 and 4:23ish, and we were pretty much talking the whole way. That’s a really good thing if you ask me!
Anyway, I’m a bit bummed because next week I need to go on Wednesday and that group is much smaller and harder to find someone to run with, but I’m hoping we’re back to running in a large group. It’s kind of fun to start off in mass chaos.
Enjoy the photo below – it’s of the Blue Mountains in Australia, a place I’ve never been to, but wow, how amazing is this? I could never take a photo like this!
Photo by Nosha, on flickr.com
Middle-of-the-Pack Girl 
June 3, 2009 at 12:01 am
yes they do the cheese run every year, and if I’m not wrong the same guy has won it at least 2 years in a row if not more! The brits will do anything for yummy british cheese and I’m sure beer is involved as well!!!
Great track work out! I’m tired reading about how fast you go!!!
June 3, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Ok, Penny, how do you know this about the cheese run?! You crack me up. You would love these track workouts – there are seriously people there of all abilities. It’s so much better to do it in a large group, I think. Even better than with just two people, but still two people are way better than one!
June 3, 2009 at 6:29 am
that cheese run looks like it’d hurt! people face planting while slip-sliding downhill, not so sure that’s for me.
sounds like another excellent track workout. i love how the 800’s were so speedy and yet it was still conversation pace. that is just plain awesome 🙂
hopefully next week you will be able to feel just as good even though there are less people around. i do like how much easier it is to go fast when you are not trying to do it alone though.
June 3, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Yep, much better to do it in a group. The only reason I know Maura didn’t kick my butt from the very beginning is that she had run those 7 miles earlier in the day. The girl’s insane, but she’s really nice. I was so glad to see her when she showed up but she didn’t recognize me with my hat on at first. It was pretty funny. I took it off and said, “if I had two ponytails on my head right now, would you recognize me?” As soon as she saw my big forehead, she laughed and recognized me.
June 3, 2009 at 9:31 am
You’re making me want to go back to the track! And seeing what the Brits do for fun makes me glad we won the war.
June 3, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Yeah, those videos are just hilarious. Makes you realize how we won the war – LOL.
June 3, 2009 at 1:55 pm
I wish there was a track near where I live, sounds like it’s a lot of fun. Are you running with a team?
June 3, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Hi Sean, I run with the MVS group, which is short for Merrimack Valley Striders. They have track sessions that you can sign up for, per season. So the skill and speed levels of everyone varies, but it’s definitely so much easier to do track workouts with a group. Misery loves company, I guess? Do any of the universities near you or high schools leave their tracks open?
June 4, 2009 at 10:17 am
Those are some great times for those intervals! I would bet that your lactate threshold (your pace for a hour of running) is probably closer to 8:45 than 10 (my ntervals for those distances are pretty close to yours, and that’s what my 10K pace is these days).
Way to go!
June 4, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Heading to the track on Saturday – My favorite length the 400s!
June 4, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Hey Terri,
Thanks for all the comments. 🙂 I have been so impressed with your speedy track workouts, I know I could never go that fast even if I actually managed to DO track workouts! I am glad, though, that I am getting my distance pace back up to where it should be. I feel like I am faster on the home runs than I was last summer, but I’m not sure if that will translate into being faster in races than last summer! That would be nice. I’m not doing Maine this fall; I wish I were, I love that area so much (and the lobsters), but after the trip to England this spring and the expenses of life in general, it’s better to forgo a trip back east this year. I reserve the right to change my mind at the last minute, of course. 🙂 I am looking forward to enjoying the FIOS; one additional expense I do need to indulge in this summer is a new TV so that I can really appreciate it! I am glad, though, that it works with my old TVs so that I didn’t have to run out and buy one right away. As for the books, I am definitely a library unto myself. Including many, many shelves of unread books which I definitely need to turn to before buying more books! I should be banned from Amazon, for sure. (But in my cleaning I found an unused Barnes & Noble gift card, so I guess I’ll have to spend it on…something!) I’m going to go back and comment on your lawyer post, I hadn’t had a chance to do that yet.
June 4, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Hi Terri,
Thanks for the info on the Cheese Run, it sounds awesome. I’m also going to try your track runs to see if I can build up my speed 🙂 I’m Hua, the director of Wellsphere’s HealthBlogger Network in the Running Community, a network of over 2,000 of the best health writers on the web (including doctors, nurses, healthy living professionals, and expert patients). I think your blog would be a great addition to the Network, and I’d like to invite you to learn more about it and apply to join at http://www.wellsphere.com/health-blogger. Once approved by our Chief Medical Officer, your posts will be republished on Wellsphere where they will be available to over 5 million monthly visitors who come to the site looking for health information and support. There’s no cost and no extra work for you! The HealthBlogger page (http://www.wellsphere.com/health-blogger) provides details about participation, but if you have any questions please feel free to email me at hua@wellsphere.com.
Best,
Hua
June 4, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Those videos have to be the funniest I’ve seen in a long time!
Glad to hear your track workouts are going well. 🙂
June 9, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Do you think they train for the cheese chasing? Do you think they have fake cheese wheels they use to train with or do they just use real cheese over and over? Do you think they eat the cheese after? Do they lose a lot of it cutting the grass/dirt out?
I’m with you… WTF?
June 9, 2009 at 5:12 pm
I would certainly NOT want to eat that cheese after that, regardless of whether or not it’s wrapped! It does look hilarious though, if not a bit insane!