Is this going to be on the test?

Yesterday's Team in Training group run was a test. Yes, a test! They are not just for school anymore (in fact, here in my fancy institution we call them exams). It was a time trial of sorts, designed to give you a sense of where you are at this point in your training. At the end of the training period, the test is repeated. The hope is that you have improved! As someone who loves numbers (but mostly only when it comes to running) I found the test to be a lot of fun and very rewarding. We did 3 lower loops of Central Park (cutting across at 72nd street and running around the southern loop of the park), each of which is about 1.7 miles long. 1 mile of this distance was to be run at an all-out effort, and the remaining .7 mile was for recovery. After finishing the loop, you start all over again! The trick is to try to keep your mile splits relatively close to each other while still running at a challenging pace. According to the TNT New York head coach, Ramon, you want to keep all three mile times within :15 of each other. This earns you an A+ on the test :)

Here are the results of my test:

1. Mile One- 7:50
2. Mile Two- 7:54
3. Mile Three- 8:03

I will, of course, post my results from the second test, which will be in several weeks.

This is a great way to keep tabs on the progress you are making, whether you are training for a marathon or not. You can easily adjust the distance (run three 1/2 miles, for instance) to suit your own goals. I would really encourage everyone who is trying to work toward a goal, or maybe feeling like they aren't seeing concrete improvement in their performance to try this for themselves. The results and benefits of comparing your performance on the first test to your performance on the second test can be really revealing and extremely helpful when it comes to tweaking what you're doing when you are working out!