New Memberships

I'm proud to say that I am a member of the Ann Arbor Track Club and the USATF.

This past Tuesday, I drove to Ann Arbor to the University of Michigan Indoor track building to participate in a Tuesday evening workout. I can say it really was a workout. I slowly ran a mile for a warm up. After listening to announcements and all of the new runners telling everyone our names, it was time to run intervals. I went into the workout with an open mind. I haven't run intervals since high school track. I do know that I need to run them because my goal is to improve the last half of my races. We were told that the workout for the evening was an 800m at tempo, 400m at mile pace, 200m all out followed by a 400m jog three times.

We the clock started, I was getting passed by so many runners. It didn't bother me. There was no need to keep up with them. I needed to run the intervals at my pace. The guy leading the workouts didn't keep splits or times, so I really don't know how I ran. I know that I did work hard because at the end of the workout, my quads were very sore. They kicked my butt. But I think that is really what I need. When I do my everyday runs, I do work on speed a bit. But doing this intervals with the AATC a couple times a month will help me get faster.

Next Tuesday the AATC is having its annual Mini Meet. The mini meet has six events. People can run them all or whatever they want. The order of the meet is 1 mile; 400m, 800m, 60m, 3200m and a 200m. I want to run them all. I want to compare my winter mini meet times with the mini meet held in the summer. I want to know if I am getting faster. A longtime member came up to me after the workout was over and said, "At the mini meet, you'll find out how out of shape you really are." I know that I'm not out of shape, long distance wise. But for shorter races I know I am. My goal for 2011 is to really improve my speed and of course lower all my times in all races.

Besides the AATC, I joined the USATF the same week. I really wanted to join because as a member of the USATF, I can run in the USATF Michigan Open/Masters Cross Country Championships. I want to represent my club at a state meet. I think it would be really fun to run against other USATF members in a state meet on a cross country course. There are other benefits to joining the USATF; discount subscriptions to magazines, discounts of USATF merchandise (I'm really liking that), discounts to hotels, car rentals and products.

I'm really looking forward to 2011 and the new adventures I will take with the AATC and the USATF.