Day 4,
September 21
Today was a track day — the first track day of this month long streak. The track was wet and slippery, which at least made it slightly more interesting.
My dad was a big fan of going to the track. He’d bring me to the one outside my high school so we could do intervals: we’d do to laps at some very fast target speed, then do a single lap at a leisurely jog, repeating this 6 - 10 times. Our target speeds differed. At first I was slower than him. Later on towards the end of high school and during college I was faster than him. I felt weird and bad once that happened, especially since I seemed to care about running a lot less than he did. I didn’t buy special shoes. I hardly bought shoes at all. He changed shoes every 3 months or so, whereas I’d only buy new shoes after the old ones were falling apart, which takes a year or two.
Now I don’t even have a watch. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do at the track. I guess I could still do intervals without timing them. Instead I just run laps at a mostly constant speed. It’s boring. A mile feels so much longer when it’s done on the track. But there’s a track literally at the door of my dormitory. It’s a very strange one, not a perfect oval like most tracks. It goes around all the dorms, then runs parallel to the stream before turning back and eventually reconnecting to make a loop. It’s not in a fenced off area or anything: you have to cross it to get the door of my dorm building. But it’s convenient. On days when I don’t feel like fighting crowds on the very busy sidewalks I have to go through to get to the better running roads, I might decide to just run a few laps on the track. Today I did eight, which is two miles. Another short easy run. I should get used to these, if I’m going to be running everyday. There’s always a feeling of guilt when I don’t put everything into my runs, but if I’m not having rest days, then I need rest runs. I just wish there were better running routes right outside the two places I live. One of the reasons I run so far is that you have to run at least two kilometers to get to anywhere relaxing and without a bunch of red lights or crowded sidewalks.