The end of a tradition: AAU workout

Several loyal distance runners with a keen eye toward the history of our program were somewhat disappointed at the end of a tradition yesterday. Usually, the Wednesday before Spring Break means the famous "AAU Championships" practice/workout. Why it got that name, I have no idea (I'm sure Prinz/Schab/Harris would be happy to retell the history).

Bottom line is the AAU workout kind of morphed out of "Kirk's Day," which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. "Kirk's Day" is named after former school record holder Kirk Dornton. One snowy Wednesday in March, Kirk completed an epic interval workout on the old McCann Center track: 12x800, with his last several blitzed at around 2:15 or faster. It really portended good things for that outdoor season, and sure enough he qualified for IC4As in the 10,000, set the school record in the 10,000 at the time (30:38) and broke 15:00 for 5km on the track.

Anyway ... somehow, the Kirk's Day workout developed into a steel-cage style 2x3200-meter workout/race in which athletes busted out their (usually very cheesy) old high school singlets. It was (and is) a great workout. But to me, the spirit of that workout died with the untimely demise of the McCann track (which, two years later, we still miss greatly; on a day like today, blustery and wind chill in the teens, it would be nice to have a warm indoor track at our disposal). Oh sure, we continued the AAU workout at Vassar's track last year, and it was still good fun; and yes, the workout was not always exclusively held inside.

But again, my vision of that workout is in McCann -- with bad music blaring, ridiculous taunts and chants from team members not participating, and charts indicating who did what afterwards. So when the time came yesterday to do the workout, my heart wasn't into it. This winter, we have done more tempo runs and longer interval type workouts on the Hudson Valley Rail Trail than probably any time in program history. When we go to the track, especially on a somewhat temperate day, it is time to get some turnover. And so, the distance men blasted out 1200-meter intervals, followed by some very energetic 400s, and did a very strong and solid workout.

The AAU Championships are as dead as the venue at which it was once held (McCann track) and the organization after which the workout was named (AAU). It had a good run. Time to create some new traditions while continuing to cultivate the ones that can and will remain.