Outrun by an 8 year old

Jessica asked me what I wanted to do this evening. I hadn't been able to move around and run run run for a couple days now, so I asked if she wouldn't mind heading over to the local school and play with Gab on the playground equipment while I ran a sprint workout. She looked at me oddly, but said, sure, she'd be up for it.

So, with cones in arm, I ran ahead of Kris, Annie, Bella, Jessica and Gaby over to the school to run the first week's first workout. The first weeks first workout? WTF?

Well, I gave my team a modified version of the Special K season sprint workouts for their season. It's much easier to focus on sprints with a weekly set of goals to achieve, and I remember loving the results of the season of workouts that Kris wrote up. The workouts are a shortened version of the full season's worth of workouts, as the season ended in July that year: the Mixed division championship was in July, allowing all Mixed players a chance to play in the Open and Women's divisions in the fall.

Today's workout was:

   7x20, 5x40, 3x50, 3x90

The runs were done by sprinting at 100% for each of the distances, then jogging back to the starting cone and resting for a prescribed time. The rests between sprints were 25 seconds for the 20m sprints, 30 seconds for the 40m sprints, 45 seconds for the 50m sprints and 60 seconds for the 90m sprints. I messed up and used 20, 35, 45 and 45 seconds instead. Whoops.

I managed to set up the line of cones at 0, 20, 40, 50 and 90m and run the first three (of the eight I did, "just to be sure I did seven") 20m sprints before the rest of the group arrived. Gaby was excited to be running, and ran the next sprint with me, but only after being completely annoyed at the fact I didn't say, "GO!" so that she knew when to run. I apologized, and explained I was on a schedule, so needed to go when the timer said go, and not wait for her to get ready. She was annoyed, and went off to play on the monkey bars instead.

Some time during my 50m runs, a dog that looked remarkably like Toto decided my cones were the best toy in the world. He grabbed the 40 cone when I passed him and started running around. I was a little worried about running over him, but more worried about Gaby crushing me.

She started running with me when I started running the 50m sprints. She kicked off her flip-flops, and, when I said go, she ran down to the cones as I sprinted down to the cone. She didn't run the full distance, but rather, turned to run back to the cone when I rounded the 50m. She was usually about 10m or so behind me after I finished the sprint, took 10m to slow down, stopped and turned around. She'd start smiling really big, turn around, and start running back to the starting cone. She'd run back as quickly as she ran down, with my jogging behind her, not quite catching her.

The 90m sprints were a bit farther than she was willing to run, with her turning around at 60m or so. However, even with that lead, a quick run should allow me to catch up to her, right?

Nope.

She was still running a full run on her way back to the starting cone, her legs flying, her mom cheering her on.

I had to start working hard to catch her running back. The runs back nearly hurt more than the sprints down, trying to catch her. The last run back I think nearly did me in: I had to sprint the last 20m to catch her. Jessica was going to give me the photo finish, but I cheered her on, "YOU DID IT!"

Okay, sure, she had a head start, but, sheesh, getting outrun by an 8 year old? Then taunted by her? "How can you run faster than me?" Oh, little kid, if only I could cross the monkey bars as fast as you. That's my next goal.