At lunch today, I did something I haven’t done in well over a year. I laced up the running shoes and rather than hitting up the trails/roads in Alamosa at a leisurely pace, or getting some decent climbing in on the treadmill, I jogged about 100 meters across a muddy-but-supposed-to-be-grassy field to the track.

I’ve set foot on the track in more recent months, but very rarely to run and not once to run fast. But, having caught the bug to run fast again last week when I did a couple of longer repeats along Highway 160, heading back to the track had an almost fun sound to it. I was even thinking about my lunch hour track workout when I woke up before my alarm clock went off this morning to do some ab work.

And, while highly tedious, my return to running on the track was actually FUN! Like, “I can’t believe I don’t do this more often!” fun. Nothing I did was exceptionally fast, but that’s what >1 year of not doing any serious speed workouts and 7,544 feet of altitude will do to you.

I kept things fairly simple as the “big oval” and I got reacquainted, running 5x800, 5x400 and 5x200 with active rest in between each. I debated throwing in a final hard mile at the end, but I didn’t want to push it too far, too quickly; a rare bit of self-restraint. I came a lit unraveled at the end of the 800s, but was hitting my goals on the 400s and 200s throughout, so that was a plus.

While more than just a way to mix things up a bit, it did feel great to do that today. I don’t think I’ll ever get so tired of running around the Alamosa City Trails that I dread heading out to the loops of dirt just North of town, but clearly they can get repetitive and even a few dozen trips around the inside of a stadium can lead to a greater appreciation of the normal route.

But something much larger was going on in my mind as I consciously made the decision to hit up the track, put on a watch and time myself as I ran in a circle. I know that to meet my running goals for this year, putting some more pace in my training is going to be necessary for successful marathon and ultra running. December’s TNF50 Championships in San Fran showed that jogging will no longer get the job done for ultra distance races: Mike Wolfe and Dakota Jones both ran about 7:20-:30 pace for 50 mile.

Also, I’m pretty sure I’ll be signing up for the Chicago Marathon in a couple weeks (fingers crossed), and I’ll certainly be shooting to destroy my first 26.2 time, and feel that 2:45 is an attainable goal. My rationale: I ran 3:08:XX after putting in fair training for the Veterans Marathon (Columbia City, Ind.) on a hilly course in 2009; this past November, on only a couple months of post-injury running and two workouts that involved any speedwork at all, I shaved several minutes of my half-marathon PR with a time of 1:25:XX, due almost entirely I’m sure to the fact that I live at altitude and had a half-decent base; with some specific training and even better fitness, I see no reason I can’t aim for a huge marathon PR on a fast course in Chicago.