Track...In a Parking Garage

Our training group has track on Tuesday nights at the local high school. Over the past few years, we've had bad weather fall disproportionately on Tuesdays...snow and ice in the winter, lightning in the summer. I guess Mother Nature isn't a fan of speed-work.

Last week the track was closed by the public school system in anticipation of icy weather that didn't actually materialize. Since it was safe for people to drive, we moved our track workout to a parking garage. Here's how we did it.

• Go to the top. We went to the top of a nine-level parking garage, where there aren't any cars.

No traffic up here!

• Measure. We used "the wheel" to measure the course. Coach Adam measured a 600 meter course, putting cones at 200 meter intervals.

Coach Mike and "the wheel"

• Station the coaches. We had four coaches, one at each marker. Adam manned the start, I was at 200 meters, Jeff held down the fort at 400 meters, and Mike had the loneliest post - 600 meters. We cheered for the runners to keep morale high, served as reference points for distance, played music, and Mike allegedly did push-ups to try to lure more runners to his post.

My "post" (get it?) - 200 meter mark

While the garage has its drawbacks - it's not very scenic, the concrete is a challenging running surface, and the ramp can't be completely avoided (resulting in a tough hill), it's far better than a cancelled workout. Kudos to the runners who toughed it out in the parking garage! Building mental toughness is an important part of training.

Way to persevere!