It started about 5 or 6 years ago on a snowy March day. An indoor workout at the McCann Center track. Kirk Dornton turned it into legend, banging out 800-meter repeat after 800-meter repeat. When it was over, he did a lot of them. I can't remember how many. 12? 15? Something around that number. All of them fast. Something called "Kirk's Day" evolved from that, and it was "celebrated" on Tuesday by Kirk's friends and family.
Somehow -- I think Sean Prinz, Justin Harris and Mike Schab were behind it, but I might be wrong -- the idea morphed into something called the AAU Championships. Basically, It amounted to this: A killer workout right before Spring Break, consisting of 2 x 3200 meters all out, with a 10-minute recovery in between. Why the AAU Championships? Who knows. But the tradition endures and today (March 13), several members of the current team took part in the killer workout in McCann.
Some guys didn't run the workout as per my suggestion. Others did parts of it. Still others did the whole thing. The star of the day? Without a doubt, Mike Rolek. OK. Without further ado, here are the "results." It was fun.
First 3200-meter "race"
Mike Rolek 9:47
Matt Janczyk 9:58
Tim Keegan 9:59
Pat Duggan 10:01
John Keenan 10:12
Zak Smetana 10:20
Joe Tarantello 10:20
Teddy Marak 10:40
Nick Webster 10:43
Colin Johnson 10:53
Kris Geist 11:15
-- -- -- --
Bryan Dixon 3:38 for 1200 (rabbit)
Matt Maynes 4:46 for 1600 (rabbit)
Second 3200-meter "race"
Mike Rolek 9:35
Tim Keegan 10:12
Nick Webster 10:17
Pat Duggan 10:19
John Keenan 10:24
Teddy Marak 10:36
Zak Smetana 10:38
Kris Geist 11:29
-- -- -- --
Matt Janczyk 3:32 for 1200 (rabbit), also helped Rolek over the last several laps. Nicely done ...
Bryan Dixon and Matt Maynes 2:20 for 800 (rabbit)
Colin Johnson 5:06 for 1600
Joe Tarantello 5:20 for 1600
Thanks to Conor Shelley, Adam Vess and Chris Locke for the MUSIC
Thanks to Conor for the starting balloons and whistle for the bell laps
Thanks to Mike Holinko for keeping track of the finishing and split times
It was fun, guys. Have a great Spring Break. I will post workout schedules here on Friday. Check back.
Until then ... Run. Rehydrate. Run Some More.
1 comment:
A little background information from one of the originators.
So it goes like this. Unhappy with the monotony and rather ease of 10x800 or 5-6x1,000 (Coach's idea of originality and fun) I walked into Sean Prinz's room in G11 and said, "Prinz, we need to do something hard. You know, the kind of workouts that when you think about them while you are sitting in class your heart rate immediately jumps up because you are a bit intimidated." Prinz answers,"Yeah I miss those. What were you thinking about Jut?" "I don't know because 2x2mile,1x1mile at threshold is so easy. What if we just tried 2x2mile avg. sub 10?" I responded. "Oh, shit. With full recovery in between?" Prinz shuttered. And at that moment I believe Schab chimed in as he stared deeply at the Pre poster in his room, "We could call it the AAU Championships!" And the rest is history.
There are only two rules really:
Rule Number 1: Do not let Coach talk you out of it. Some of the best races of certain runners career's were made during this workout. So don't let him fool you.
Rule Number 2: You have to try and average 10:00 for both.
Anything and everything else is legal. I'm glade that this great, great workout has become a tradition.
Congrats to Rolek! Now, if you don't break 15 flat for 5k then I am going to beat your ASS.
Till we met again, Jut.
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