The Jus’ Running Tuesday Night Track Workout

A few weeks ago I decided I’d go out for the first time and try one of the track workouts that Jus’ Running organizes on Tuesday evenings. I had heard about these workouts and my impression was that they were pretty tough. I checked out the description at the Jus’ Running website and here’s what it says …

Norm’s Maggots’ Tuesday night Track workout

Meet at 6:30 pm at Jus’ Running. The workout typically consists of a 1.5 warm up to the track, 5 miles of track intervals, and a 1.5 mile cool down back to the store. Not recommended for beginners, but all paces are welcomed.

I figured, “OK – I’ll give it a shot.” I showed up at the Jus’ Running store at about 6:15 and hung around outside. There were runners gathering inside and out. I saw plenty of people that I recognized (those that I had seen briefly at race starting lines and maybe on an out and back race when they were returning long before I made the turn) and talked to one person I knew from my age group in the track club.

At 6:30 we (about 35-40 runners) started to run over to the track at UNCA. It’s a loose group, more like many clumps of runners all generally headed in the same direction but no need to worry if you can’t keep up with a certain clump. Just start your own clump.

Eventually everyone shows up at the track (just keep someone in sight if you’re not sure where the track is). There were also runners that didn’t show up at Jus’ Running at all, but showed up at the track (skipping the 1.5 mile warm up run from the store to the track).

Norm Blair announced the workout after everyone was at the track. Then, as if on cue, it started raining.

Here’s what the workout was that day.

2 x 800 meters at better than 5k pace (200 meter recovery)
6 x 400 meters at better than 5k pace (200 meter recovery)
2 x 800 meters at better than 5k pace (200 meter recovery)

So you get the assigned workout then everyone just starts doing it. I wasn’t really on the same pace as anyone else so I was just doing my own thing at my own pace. The track is just full of people doing their workouts and you might be doing a recovery while someone else is doing their fast running. But the atmosphere is one that keeps you working hard. In fact, it’s not just this group out on the track. There are other individual runners out there who are also just making use of the track, although not specifically with the Jus’ Running group.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and will make it a part of my weekly workout whenever I can. I returned again last week and we were put into three groups for our workout and here’s what we did.

5 x 200 meters with 60 second recovery
5 x 200 meters with 45 seconds recovery
5 x 200 meters with 30 seconds recovery
5 x 200 meters with 15 seconds recovery

Each 200 meter run was to be at 3k pace (needless to say I’ve never run a 3k so I figured this needs to be better than a 5k pace but not so fast that I run out of gas before the end of the workout). Norm said that our first 200 meter run should be about the same time as our last 200 meter run. So, pacing is important.

These are great workouts and the group makes everyone feel welcome. If you haven’t tried one of these, I encourage you to give it a shot.