For the past two years, I've raced the Power Mile in the summer: the only one-mile race in New Orleans, put on by my club, the Power Milers.
Here's my mile PR and here's the day I ran a mile after one of the worst days of morning sickness ever. Not fun!
This year, it's up in the air. Who knows when races will return, and when they do, how will they have changed? Who will have the discretionary income to register...or, equally important, to sponsor? The likelihood of the race returning this year is slim. But that doesn't mean we can run a mile.
It's official: we have something to train for. The Power Milers are training for a fast summer mile! I am unreasonably excited to have a training plan. For one thing, I haven't followed a training plan with a goal race since Boston last year. And for another thing...everything is just more exciting now (I had to run an errand this weekend and got silly excited for it). It's a way for the team to stay connected, have something to talk about on Slack, and share a common goal. Workouts start up soon, and I can't wait for the focus.
The mile will probably be run on the track, as long as tracks stay open, and will be at the end of summer. Details are understandably up in the air: will we be running alone, or can we meet as a group? Or just a few people at a time? We don't know yet, but the good thing is that a mile is pretty adaptable. We could do it on the road, we could do it on the track, we could do it with spectators, we could have competition, we could do it alone. Of course, best case scenario would be to run it almost like a race, with each other to provide that extra incentive to run faster. But if that's not possible, I think the mile would be easier than, say, a lonesome half-marathon or 10k. I can imagine doing a track mile alone with David and baby watching from inside the oval and using their cheers to motivate!
Yay for having something to train for, even though what the race will look like is completely up in the air. Like everything else in life. But it will be nice to have a purpose to your workouts that is different than other training plans you've had before (I don't think you've trained for a mile race before!) I find the mile race super challenging. I am just terrible at running fast for a short distance. I have done a mile race and my time was worse than the middle miles of a 1/2 marathon! I warmed up before hand, of course, but I seem to really 'hit my stride' after like 5 miles or something. Ha. Well that's old Lisa. Current Lisa doesn't hit her stride period but some day that will change...
ReplyDeleteThat is super exciting. You will have a blast. I have never raced a mile, but I was thinking now would be the time to try it. I think you will really surprise yourself with how fast you can run it.
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