Tonight was the first night of the Houston Strider’s SMART program, formerly known as PIM.  Well, PIM’s still PIM, but it’s not the Striders’ PIM anymore, it’s HARRA’s PIM now.  And instead of Wednesday nights at Memorial Park, HARRA’s PIM is Thursday nights at Rice University.  So even though Rice is just minutes from my house, I decided to go with the Strider’s SMART program since it’s smaller, I’ll know more people and it’s a 5 minute drive from my office. Getting to West University from the Galleria area is insane on any weekday. Plus, I’m a Houston Strider, yo.

Anyways.

So, speaking of being close to my office, I got to the Aquatic Center in Memorial Park at 6:30 - half an hour before the 7pm start time.  It was one of those rare moments where I was actually early for something.  I headed over to the meeting place, chatted a bit with Judith and then said Hi to Steeeve Shepard, who handed me a nifty pedometer with the little Houston Striders logo on it.  Yay for gadgets!  Cassie (aka, Clarice Starling) arrived, Steve gave his welcome message and then we split into groups - beginners, intermediate, and performance.  The beginners group was for people new to running (”not confident about running a mile”), the intermediate group was for people who could run a mile but not sure they could run a 5K, and the performance group was for anyone who could run more than a 5K and wanted to improve their speed.  Most people joined the performance group, maybe 8 people joined the intermediate group, and no one was in the beginners group.

Barbara led the intermediate group, and Steve led us, the performance group.  Our first workout was to run from the Aquatic Center to the asphalt running track next to the Tennis Center, then run two loops around the track.  Cassie and I headed over to the running track, which I had never actually run on before.  We got to the running track, ran our 2 loops (which we forgot to do until we saw other runners doing it - oops), and then waited for Steve to walk us through the stretching exercises. 

The stretching exercises were pretty funny. The first set involved walking on our toes, then walking on our heels, then skipping and then hopping….all in a tight circle on the track.  I’m sure we looked pretty funny to people across the street.  During the skipping exercise, one of my shoes came off.  I turned around to grab it and was suddenly faced with 20 skipping Striders coming at me.  Scary.  Then we had to hop 12 times on one foot, then 12 times on another foot in a loop…..and hopping is a lot harder than I thought.  Ow.  The next set of exercises involved us jumping in place, swinging our arms doing something called “the ice cream cone”(?), and then the “hot stove,” where we jump up and down really fast.  For all their funny names, the exercises were pretty effective because my ass hurt when we were done.

Then came the killer part of the workout (at least for me).  Speed intervals!  I’d never done any speed workouts before, so tonight was my first. We did 30 seconds of fast running followed by 30 seconds of recovery running, repeated 12 times.  It wasn’t bad at first, but as Steve predicted, 30 seconds of fast running started feeling longer, and 30 seconds of recovery running started feeling too short.  By the end, my fast/slow intervals were barely distinguishable.  Urgh.  But hey - I’ve finally done a speed workout!  Amazingly, Cassie said speed workouts with Team in Training helped her cut FOUR minutes off her 5K time in four months. 

After the speed workouts, we had a Gatorade break, did our final two laps around the track then headed back to the Aquatic Center. 

I told Cassie and Steve that I could really feel how my running fitness level has declined since the Marathon.  I’m not putting in the same mileage I did as when I was training for the Marathon.  I was running or working out 3 or 4 days a week until my taper.  Since Jan 15th, I’ve averaged 1-2 times a week.  Bleh.  And, I’m not as careful with what I’m eating. My clothes are starting to feel a little too snug these days, so it’s time to get back on track.

As I was gasping for air during the speed workouts, I started thinking how nice it was to be back in an organized running group.  First, there was PIM in 2004, and then HoustonFit last year…..and though I’ve had some gripes about HoustonFit, I did appreciate the structured training schedule and organized group runs.  So, although tonight’s workout kicked my ass, it was fun.   Actually, it was the first time since the Marathon that I really enjoyed running.  I was exhausted afterwards, but I was happy.  Running/working out and the few races I’ve done since the Marathon have just been OK - but I didn’t feel the same excitement and motivation about them as I did before. I haven’t even been wearing my Polar heart rate monitor, except for races.  I think I have the post-Marathon blues, which is why I’ve been looking forward to PIM, er SMART, so much - I like the group training and structured training schedule combined with a new running goal (run a 5K under 30 minutes, and a 10K under 60).  Maybe when I’m a better/faster/more experienced runner, I won’t need so much structure - but for now, I guess I do. 

Plus, I got a free pedometer out of it. Striders rock.