Hammer Time: A Turtle Takes on the Track

By Barbara Zirl

The first of three alarm clocks goes off at zero dark thirty and I fumble to shut it off, trying to rationalize why I need to wake up before morning. The side of my head still on the pillow leads off the debate. It’s too early, too cold, too dark, go back to sleep. The side that heard the alarm says, get up, have coffee. Pillow-con says, rest is good, stay in bed. Alarm-pro says, that person who will be in front of you for 26.2 miles in your next marathon – the girl whose ponytail swishes from side to side like an accusatory wagging finger – she’s getting up now to go to the track to put in one more workout than you did. Plus the “Hammer Time” team will be there and they’ll be getting up soon too. Go.

I get up. Make coffee with my two cats around my feet while I stand in the kitchen. They’re staring up at me, saying “feed me.” Cats can’t tell time. I dress in layers of running gear I can shed quickly once I warm up. Buckle a lamp around my waist and drive to the Santa Teresa High School track. It’s 5:00 a.m. Later the track will be a practice area for some high school team. But now it’s a workout space for die-hard runners. One of my first running partners and I used to ask ourselves “why do we do this?” as we pushed on to complete long training runs. Our answer was “we’re fitness enthusiasts, dammit!” These early mornings the answer is more like, “we’re nuts!” But there’s camaraderie in our insanity, accountability like meeting friends at a gym.

Even for those other long-run mornings when I push off at 7:00 a.m., it takes me several hours to start moving – in slow motion. I’m a sloth. I’m old. For a 5:00 a.m. workout, imagine how early I’m rising. I’ve tried the alternative – getting up just an hour before and zooming out the door. Not on purpose, but because I slept through the first two alarms and bolted out of bed to turn off the third one. Of course on those mornings, as soon as I arrive at the track, Coach Bertrand Newson says, “400 meter time trials today!”

For the entire eight minutes it takes to drive from my apartment to the school, I’m still asking myself (out loud in the car) “Why am I doing this? What am I getting out of it? I can’t set a personal record (PR). I’m not improving. It’s not helping me in my races. I’m getting slower and slower. I’m cold. It’s dark. It isn’t fun.” Still, I’m showing up. That’s something. Even if it means being dead last.

Coach B has arrived before us and has set up flickering lights at the start line, and red steady lights at the 50-meter, 100-meter and 200-meter markers. There’s a bit of glow from the parking lot and maybe some stars and moonlight, but not enough to illuminate the track. Gradually, the Hammer Time team regulars gather and we kvetch about the weather. Someone even bundles up in a blanket.

A team member leads a dynamic stretch before we run, with bursts of cardio to warm up our legs. Coach B queries each of us about our aches, pains, injuries, and upcoming races. He’ll give a shout out to someone’s accomplishment, recognize individuals on achievements – a new half-marathon or marathon PR, a goal met, or a goal race on the horizon, and share his own personal running adventures. We hear an overview of the morning’s workout session. Then, Coach B shares words of wisdom to run by. He tells us there are no shortcuts: you must put in the work and train to unleash your “inner savage.” Eliminating excuses and self-doubt and putting in the effort now is a formula for celebrating success on race day. We need to focus on building endurance which will help us sustain speed and improve our race performance. He tells us to be consistent. Build a base with mid-week runs, mid-range and long-runs on the weekend. Incorporate intermittent bursts of speed in short runs. We talk about the benefits of track workouts. How they make you faster, stronger and less injury prone. Set fitness goals and work to achieve them. We discuss race strategies. Run negative splits! Conserve on the first half of your race; crush the second half. Taper smartly. Be fresh on race day.

Likely, we’ve all heard this before, but hearing your coach encapsulate smart advice makes you pay attention. We’re in a fitness fellowship and the group energy and team spirit is palpable and inspiring.

We’re running a 3-2-1 warm-up drill: three minutes at easy pace; two minutes at 5K; one minute at maximum effort. I light up my Garmin watch during the 3-minute phase and it says 11 minutes per mile pace. Coach blows his whistle for the next segment. I’m at 10:30. At the next whistle, I pick up my pace as fast as I can. It’s just under a 10 minute mile. My fellow early morning runners are FAST! They’re starting with 8 minute miles. 7- to 5-minutes in their fast-pace segments. Their easy pace is my tempo run – ten years ago. It’s discouraging to be the turtle.

Also, it’s a good thing it’s dark on the track so no one can clearly see my running form. There’s a viral video that’s been circulating of Tyrannosaurus Rexes lined up at a starting gate like a horse race, at Emerald Downs Race track in Auburn, Washington. The commentator says, they’re off and running.” 30 competitive runners dressed in inflatable T-Rex suits bolt out of the gate, dinosaur heads bobbing as they sprint 100 meters or so for the finish line. Number 13 – “Regular Unleaded” – is the winner. It got 1.8 million views. It’s hilarious. It’s also how I feel sprinting around the dark track with my waist lamp bouncing with just enough light to show my feet the ground. I’d tried wearing a headlamp (the kind that makes you look like a coal miner) but as I ran it would slide onto my nose. To avoid that, I’d keep my head low, looking at the ground. That made my running form even more awkward. Think Seinfeld’s Elaine, dancing. My gracefulness on the track is somewhere between a blow-up dinosaur and a comedienne doing disco.

Last year, when I first arrived in California from New Jersey and had been part of the Too Legit Fitness team for a just a couple of months, Coach B had gently nudged me about joining the Hammer Time track workout. My new friends also had talked about their 5 a.m. runs and Wednesday mornings at the track. They said, “Join us!” I was reticent, but thought, don’t say no. Try it once. I bought the running head lamp. That first workout last October, I was the slowest one on the track. I felt out of fitness, out of breath, out of my element.

My only previous track experience was un-coached and un-structured. In New Jersey, for a few summers when school was out, the Livingston High School track opened up to the public weekday mornings and I’d run laps there as an alternative to running hilly roads. I’d also run timed laps around the shared ½-mile oval path in front of the school, where local walkers would stroll for exercise, little kids would ride their bikes or scooters, and runners would try to avoid bumping into them.

On a few visits to San Jose, I’d stay in Saratoga, where my brother’s in-laws live and run from their house up the steep hills to West Valley College. I’d run some flat laps around the college track and end my run with a downhill route back to their home.

I have done speed-work as part of my marathon training for years. On hilly routes, I mix it up with “fire hydrant fartleks” changing up my easy, conversational pace for sprints at fire hydrant intervals. I’ve also worked on marathon pace tempo runs, but do them on a treadmill to monitor my exact speed. I still like my former Coach Frank Pucher’s treadmill tempo workout: 1 mile warm up starting at 6 mph or a 10 minute per mile pace; increase your speed a tenth of a mile at a time until you get to marathon pace; keep a steady MP for 3 miles; plus one cool down mile; increase the distance each week a half mile until taper time. At that point you’re running tempo or marathon pace for 10 miles. That workout helped me nail my Boston qualifying run at the Philadelphia Marathon and was part of my regular training for subsequent marathons. I’m not chasing BQ’s anymore or going after marathon PRs, but track speed work keeps me from getting stagnant, slogging away at a slow pace all the time.

We’re doing time trials – for 400 meters or one quarter-mile lap around the track. My best mile time these days is around 8 minutes (probably just one) buried deep in the midst of a long training run where I’ve had ample miles to warm up and increase my speed gradually. Technically, my 400 meters time should be 2 minutes or better. I line up to run my lap. The whistle blows. I run all out, dinosaur-head bobbing, little arms flapping, waist-lamp bouncing a cone of light onto the inner-most lane. My personal record for 400 meters on the track is 2:01 (an 8:10 mile pace) - set last Fall - and I’ve yet to run sub 2 minutes. The others are clocking record-setting laps of 1:40, 1:24, 1:19, 1:16! Those are 6- and 5-minute miles. As a “masters” marathon runner, my distance PRs are long behind me. The best I can hope for in a race is an age group record. However, I’ve never done actual track drills or monitored my track workouts until now, so all these track workouts could be potential PRs.

Each Hammer Time track workout challenges our running ability in some way and I learn something new each time.

We’re running a series of 5 x 50 meter sprints. I check my time for each single segment and a few are even at 7- and 6-minute pace. Look at that! Of course, it’s only 50 meters, not a full mile.

One morning we’re at a different track at Los Paseos Park, on the field in the dark with a lit up flickering soccer ball practicing our speed and agility like that long-haired black cat darting across the football field during an NFL game.

We’re on the school football field doing a relay: jump squats to the 10 yard line; bear crawls to the 20; walking lunges to the 30; burpees at the 40; then a sprint to the opposite goal line. Or we’re running wide laps around the four sides of the field, stopping at each corner for a circuit of arm curls, push-ups, squats, jumping jacks. We run up and down the bleachers doing stair repeats.

We shed clothes as the seasons change. Long tights, hats, gloves when it’s so cold you can see your breath in the moonlight. Team tank-tops and shorts in the summer when the sunrise peeks just over the foothills on the horizon. There are themed workouts surrounding holidays and events. Global Running Day, Taji 100, Hammer Time 1-year anniversary, New Year’s, 4th of July, Veteran’s Day.

It’s a somber 9/11 and we gather for a “unison run,” circling the track for 9 laps – with everyone running the same pace so no one is left behind.

It’s Halloween and we’re split into two teams, chasing and avoiding a zombie (aka Coach B) on the field, hunting for glow-in-the-dark cones we pick up and place in a plastic pumpkin bucket.

It’s the day before Thanksgiving and it’s pouring, windy and freezing, but an hour later than usual and people have the holiday off. We’re working out under the covered and lit parking structure at the high school. A team member is guest coaching and 13 people have showed up for Hammer Time. We’re all in cold weather layers and rain gear. We run turkey “leg” laps around the parking area, increasing our speed as we turn a corner. We break into relay teams and crack open turkey “eggs” filled with fitness challenges. We gather in a circle and share what we’re grateful for, while running cool down laps.

We’re perfecting our technique for finish line pictures, running to the flashing light and jumping with our arms raised high. Practicing our best moves so at a race, “That Guy” – the one who always photo bombs my best shot – won’t get in front of me.

Is it possible to significantly improve or alter your running form? Last January, on a clear, cool Sunday morning, we attended a running clinic on the field at the high school led by Coach Jay Ridgeway and his daughter Coach Emily, both with PacWest Endurance. The specialized track workout focused on running form and efficiency, reducing injuries and improving our overall running experience. We learned about ideal running cadence, and how to break apart the mechanics of running form into posture, lean, gait, foot strike, stance, body balance, arm swing. We learned about the benefits of core strength, functional training, and drills before and after our runs.

I try to incorporate these techniques into my running form – not all at once, that’s too confusing. But you can work on posture and your arm swing, for instance, and perhaps appear slightly less Elaine Benes and maybe a little more Shalane Flanagan. Or count cadence as you run listening to music with a fast beat. If I try to add more variables, my chances of tripping over my own feet increase, so I concentrate on one running improvement at a time. Maybe someday the changes will coalesce and I will appear as swift as Eliud Kipchoge, his neon green Nikes a blur, surrounded by his posse of pacers, as he soars off to break the sub two hour marathon, setting the new record in 1:59.40. Probably not.

A little more than a year’s gone by since my first morning at Hammer Time. It’s my birthday and I’m guest coaching the workout. I lead my teammates through a November birth-date modified version of our running warm-up, team 50 meter sprints and 4-corner field circuits with a variety of exercises and end with a team 100 meter relay on the track. There are donuts afterward to celebrate!

I still have to push myself to wake up and go to the track, but knowing that my fitness family will be gathering in the dark too motivates me to show up. I know that the work I put in on the track will pay off on the race course and improve my running and fitness overall. So I dig deep to find my inner savage beast. I toss aside my meek menagerie of sloth, dinosaur and turtle. In my dreams I’m a cheetah springing towards my prey.

Then the Wednesday morning alarm clock rings again.