songs of experience

I stole Hemingway’s title. This will not be a post about the great minimalist writer - though when I was reading around in The Crack-Up this week, I did come across something silly Fitzgerald said about his friend’s stripped-down writing style: “We are happy to announce that his work will appear in future exclusively on United States postage stamps.”

My favorite Hemingway line goes something like this, “Forgive my long letter; I didn’t have time for a short one.”
And this is pretty good, too:

“For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can.
Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.”

So anyway (my brother always pronounces that “Swenny-way”), today’s blog entry is not about a feast, but about a work-out that is moveable. I do, however, often refer to a really hard work-out - good hard, you know? - as a meal. Don’t you know runners who spend all their running “calories” on snacks? Lots of 5-6 mile runs at 85% effort, long runs with way too many stops (for water, shoelace tying, potty, goo, view, etc.), intervals with way too much recovery (a 400m jog is too long, people!). I believe every training phase should incorporate a break-down period so that you can build up to greater fitness (and racing potential). Now, of course, this can be taken to an extreme (because, after all, distance runners are addicted to fatigue) and runners can spend an entire season, nay their entire racing careers, broken down. (I’ve always wanted to use “nay” in a sentence).

Swenny-way, the following work-out can be done in winter spring summer or fall (all you have to do is call). It has speed and strength and, depending on how fast you run the downhill recovery, can be aerobic as well. The up-and-down ladder element makes it an excellent mental work-out and the fact that it is on just one hill (vs. several) means you could do it anywhere (even in flat Florida, on an overpass). Anytime, anywhere …. moveable.

Warm up 15 minutes.
On a not-too-steep hill, run hard up and then jog down (back to where you started) like so:
45 seconds, 60, 75, 90, 2:00, 90, 75, 60, 45 seconds. Cool down 15 minutes.

On each of intervals on the first half of the ladder, mark the spot where you made it to so that when you come down the other side of the ladder you will have a goal to aim for (and, hopefully, surpass). This keeps your effort honest - especially if you are doing this work-out alone. It’s amazing how hard you’ll push to eek out another two feet, just to make it past this arbitrary mark.

When coaching kids, it’s fun to give them each a piece of chalk to mark the pavement if they are running the hills on a road. I have used pine cones, sticks, rocks, roots … and yesterday, one of my seejanerunners marked hers with horse “poo” that was on the trail. She didn’t actually touch the poo; she just noted that on her first 45 seconds UP, she made it to the big poo.

And on that note ….

Bon appetit!!