By Dustin Sweeney
Tripp finds me at the
Ballston Metro at 6:31 am with Frank in tandem and we are off to Bluemont Park
in Arlington. If you’re not familiar,
you can look at a map of Arlington and Bluemont is the last patch of open grass
in the county (outside of the infamous Arlington Cemetery). Finding grass is a hot commodity in the
DC/Alexandria/Arlington Area, so much so that Southerland and DeVar venture from
their U-Street abode in the early morning hours to take on Arlington’s best
patch of unkempt grass.
We arrive pre-dawn to find
Peter Accomando in the parking lot, ready to roll. As we unfold out of Tripp’s Mini we find the
type of morning that is unique to October.
Crisp as a first bite of a Granny Smith Apple, the type of morning that
I suspect people in Ireland regularly enjoy – at least according to that Sounds of Ireland CD I found.
I still haven’t told them their workout, and they haven’t asked. I point them towards the Bluemont Junction
Trail and tell them to warm up. The first part of their workout will be on
the paved bike path that used to be a black and white railroad track serving
the DC area in the ‘50s. Despite its
rail-authenticity, there’s a “good climb” into a gradual incline and then back
down. They break into their warm up and I start
marking the grass course around the grounds.
The group arrives, less one. Chris
Rom, a freshman at Georgetown, is unfortunately at Teddy Roosevelt Island and
ends up the fault of the dreaded miss-communication
He aboards the pain train solo and performs 4k upper
threshold (5:40s); 2x2k @ 10k effort (5:30s) with a 3:00 recovery in between
each. The island is tricky, and I don’t
mean whorish, I mean slow. So effort is
the key word here.
I tell Pete, Frank (FD) and Trippstar (TS) their workouts
for the day.
Frankenstein and Tripp-odometer have:
- 2 miles upper threshold (Frank @ 10:10-10:20;
Tripp @ 10:20-10:30) on the Bluemont Junction
- 2-4’ recovery, change shoes. Then into…
- 3 sets of 1200 @ 10k
Effort (1’ recovery) 800 @ slightly faster (2-4’ recovery between sets) on THE
GRASS. Devar @ 3:45-3:50 &
2:25-2:30; Southland @ 4:00-4:05 & 2:35-2:40
All told 9.2k of work.
Peter:
5 sets of 800 @ slightly
slower than 5k effort (2’ recovery) 400 @ slightly faster than 5k effort (2’
recovery). I don’t prescribe him times….Peter
has never ran seriously on grass. And
this is SERIOUS.
So all this is about to start and who is
there??? CROSS CYCLERS! They’re doing a workout at the same
place/same time. Cross Cyclers are freaking crazy, but they’re also good guys.
What’s cross cycle? This is cross
cycle:
Some baddass stuff.
They were going batshit crazy doing loops around the baseball fields,
weaving around on the hill, but were always very courteous of what we were
doing. Nice guys. Crazy, but nice.
TWO MILES, upper threshold: FD is right on at 10:23.0, TS follows closely
at 10:31.0 – honestly it’s over 2miles, but who gives a shit. 3minutes and a change of shoes later the
first set begins
The 800m course is windy,
has a steep 100m climb and is true cross country. Like a white guy at a reggae concert it was impossible
to get rhythm and the grass is soaked with the morning’s dew. My feet are totally drenched and starting to
go numb – so theirs must be frozen blocks of ice.
At any cost, this is cross country, so who
cares.
SET ONE: FD -- 3:46.0, 2:31.4; TS – 3:51.1, 2:37.0. I tell them to relax, this is more about
effort than splits.
SET TWO: FD – 3:53.5, 2:30.9; TS – 4:02.6, 2:37.6. They listened to me.
SET THREE: FD – 3:49.0, 2:28.6; TS – 4:00.1, 2:36.5. A great job.
They finish by doing a speed drill in and out
of cones. Yes. Cones. 
PETE continues to improve. His goal is to win his local turkey trot in
Mass, which I believe, is the coolest freaking goal I’ve ever heard. His results:
3:00.2, 80.1
// 2:57.5, 82.1 // 2:59.0,
80.6 //
3:00.4, 79.5 // 2:57.1, 77.6
People are telling me this blog was too long? You know what else is too long? The great wall of China.
And you can see that from space.
