Running Fast

   Here's the thing.
   As much as I enjoy lacing up and heading out for a long run, one of the things I find problematic is the feeling that I am constantly pacing myself. I find that I am necessarily holding bits of energy in reserve simply so that I can finish whatever run I happen to be on. Along the way, I do enjoy the feeling that I am slowly becoming stronger at what I do, that perhaps I seem less tired at the same point of a run than I was last week, at that same point. What I find I want to do, however, is run fast.
   I'm not talking fast in the sense that I might manage to whittle a couple of minutes off my 5K PR. No, I'm talking fast as in make-the-younger-guys-jaws-drop-as-I-run-past-them-on-the-the-football-field fast! I'm talking the 61-year-old version of Usain Bolt fast! I'm talking sprinter fast!
   Yeah, I kinda want to lace up some sprinting spikes, find a track somewhere and let it all out, occasionally. In the past, several other running bloggers have done posts about their track workouts and when you're mired in up to three feet of snow it's hard to resist the allure of a pristine running track in the warm sunshine.


How I would like one of my
races to start someday...

   I have never run track in my life, apart from the very rudimentary instruction I might have gotten in public school and then later on in high school. My impression of myself back in those days was that I was a chubby kid with no athletic talent. Long past my chubby days I was still unable to shake that mental image of myself (this a problem with anyone else?) and that's why the idea of participating in any kind of track and field event seemed unthinkable. It wasn't until I was in my twenties and started playing in a touch football league that I realized just how fast I was. Of course, that was almost forty years ago.
   In the meantime, the only benchmark I have is that I've played ball hockey for many years against much younger men (boys, some of them) and I have held my own quite handily. I have never competed against men my own age so I'm wondering how I might do out on a track.
   Unfortunately, this is not a situation where I can just head out to a track and start doing my thing. Like I said, everything here in London is covered in snow right at the moment and the only indoor track I can think of is at Western University. Not really sure I can just barge in on a bunch of Western track athletes and say "excuse me, I'm just gonna use this lane for a half hour or so"!
   I also would like to get a little bit of actual coaching. I would like someone to tell me how to train (as a man in my sixties who's never done it before) to run track, of all things! I think this would be cool!
   There are a couple of different track clubs here in London and my plan is to contact them and explain what I'd like to do. They might simply laugh at me (hopefully politely and in a non-condescending kind of way) and tell me to get lost realistic about the whole thing. It could well be that you continue to do track in your sixties, you don't start to do track in your sixties.
   At any rate, I will keep you posted!