Some ChemRun Speedwork

For those of you who haven't heard me talk about this, the runners in my Chemistry department (a good mix of faculty, post-docs and grad students) get together and do some runs three times a week.  At first I was actually surprised by how many competitive runners there were in my department, but after thinking about it, I'm not sure I should be that surprised.  Academia tends to attract Type A personalities, and some of the best competitive athletes are very Type A.  But that's a blog topic for a different day.  Today, I just wanted to talk about the speed workout we did on Wednesday morning.

We all got together on Wednesday, and it was one of the professors' turns to pick the workout. He decided that our set (after ~ a 2 mile warm-up) was going to be:

1 mile fast

0.25 mile easy

0.25 mile fast

0.25 mile fast

0.50 mile fast

0.25 mile easy

0.25 mile fast

0.25 mile easy

What a fun little ladder!  And 3 things surprised me during the workout:

• First, our faculty members are Fast with a capital F.  Seriously, most of the faculty busted out that first mile sub-6:00, and a couple of them were sub-5 minutes.  
• Second, I busted out that first mile in 7:58. Not too shabby considering my "official" PR in the mile is 8:10!  Now, I'm excited for the Firebirds mile on April 14th!  
• Third, not only are faculty members crazy-fast, but they also definitely know how to trash talk.  They were trash-talking each other, which was hilarious, as well as taunting the students!