Notes
Plan was to do 4x1600 at around 3:48 pace which meant I would have had to average 6:05 for each rep. Conditions were pretty good, nice and cool and wasn't expecting any wind.
Left calf still a little tight but warm up went ok. Started out the first rep pretty good, felt strong while maintaining pace but had to come to an abrupt stop to avoid car with 100m left in rep - this was followed by a quick burst which no doubt drained some energy. Recovery went well but or some reason I just couldn't get going in the 2nd rep. Entering TT I felt some headwind out of nowhere and this discouraged me a bit. It was almost as if my CNS was just taxed and I couldn't push myself to inject some needed pace. Felt like I was hovering around 3:59 pace for most of the rep and just wasn't making any progress.
Third rep went a lot better and finished it really strong without the need to accelerate y breathing. Recovery still went pretty well but again in the 4th rep I just couldn't push myself. Legs were feeling a little sluggish and there may have been a breeze but there was still no excuse to at least try to get my pace a little lower. Breathing accelerated in the last 500m and I really only made a final push in the last 150m or so.
Felt a lot fresher than usual for the cool down so I know I didn't push myself as much as I could have. The pace during rests was also brisker than normal so I know I was holding back during the reps. Overall a pretty crappy workout, but maybe it was needed after a couple of heavy volume weeks. I don't think I have ever had a workout like this where I slacked off so badly in the 2nd rep without death marching the last reps. Next week will be interesting as I go back to 1000's
Average for 4 reps: 6:10.3
km pace: 3:51.4
Splits - 400m, 800m
1:31
1:31 3:02
1:33
1:30 3:03
1:35
1:34 3:09
1:37
1:32 3:09
1:32
1:32 3:04
1:31
1:28 2:59
1:32
1:36 3:08
1:34
1:33 3:07
This is how it compares to previous 1600 workouts
6/19/13 6:25.8 (4:01.1)
7/22/13 6:17.0 (3:55.6)
10/5/13 6:06.6 (3:49.1) 5 reps w/400 rest
8/1/15 6:11.6 (3:52.2)
8/22/15 6:05.5 (3:48.4)
10/8/15 6:02.2 (3:46.4)
9/24/16 6:11.2 (3:52.0)
11/6/16 6:10.3 (3:51.4)
Usually I was able to do a 6x1000 at about 1-2 seconds faster around the same time as the 4x1600. Today however I was about 4 seconds slower than last week.