Notes
-- Garmin Connect Import --
3 up/3 down, and speed in between. A good kind of day.
It drizzled pretty solidly during the warm-up and cool down, and pretty much just rained during the workout part. I was happy that it at least wasn't really raining when I stepped out the door to start, because that made it easier to get going.
I really wanted to try to hit some great speed today. That system is something I both enjoy working on and also pride myself for having, and I'm wary of letting go of it as I get older. Its always fun when the marathon build-up includes this kind of day. And though I've grown to really like all the other "stuff" that comes with longer races, I will always be a miler at heart, and I will always love this kind of work.
So I went out to rip some fast stuff and see how it felt. There was a pretty good wind, and I didn't want to cheat the workout, so I decided to run all my reps straight east on the cedar lake trail, straight into the wind. That way, I would really find out where I truly am.
Workout was 4x (30s, 30s, 30s, 75s) at mile, all with 90 sec rest
splits were
5:29, 4:56, 5:02, 5:13
5:15, 5:07, 5:17, 5:24
5:18, 5:02, 4:59, 5:28
4:59, 5:06, 4:57, 5:24
I'm happy with the paces, overall. There's some variation, of course, but the numbers say I successfully turned some gears, and that's what it felt like when I was out as well. I felt strong and smooth and fast. And it was fun to fly a bit.
I will say that after the first, 75 second piece, I realized that I needed to dial those back just a little bit if I was going to be able to have any sort of longevity in the workout. I took off for the first one and about 50 seconds into it my butt was locking up, my hamstrings and calves were starting to go, and the last 15sec of it felt (and I imagine looked) a little bit like the very end of a 400m race- uncoordinated, ugly, and painful.
While its great to have that kind of fatigue, I really didn't think that I'd make it through 16 reps if I tried to maintain that pace for the 75sec pieces. And even more so, I felt like trying to keep the 75sec pieces as fast as that first one would compromise the speed I was able to generate on all the 30 second pieces in between. So after the first one, I consciously dialed back the 75 sec pieces just one notch. They were still fast, and I still felt A LOT of fatigue, so I think the benefit was there. I just wanted to be able to accomplish ALL the workout to its fullest potential. Maybe I did it wrong then, but I hope not. The first one was 5:13, and it was UGLY at the end. And I think the following set of 30s pieces suffered just a little bit because of it. So I'm hoping that if the next three 75sec pieces were 5:24, 5:28, and 5:24, I still got some benefit from that.