Notes
20' continuous tempo, VDOT T is 5:30 but I was looking to have a progressive one, feel good and average ~5:40.
Heh, maybe this one was a bad idea but I was feeling wild and crazy today and just did it live. Planned on running in the middle of the day when it was warmest and sunniest, giving the track maximum time to thaw. From the office window I thought I could see enough red, but when I got down to the track I found I had been deceived... the straightaways were more or less clear (some avoidable icy footprints) but the turns were a mess. The second half of turn 2 was covered with a layer of ice, which actually wasn't terrible... it was patchy enough that you could find footing if you were aware. Turn 1 was awful, basically a 70m stretch that had a non-negligible amount of snow covering it... it looked like it must have been all blown into that area. Lane 2 (??) looked like it had been partially sloppily shoveled, and was a little more packed down, but basically that turn was awful. Every time I hit it was like I was running in a dream where I was trying to force myself to run faster and wasn't going anywhere. To add to the fun, there was a very strong wind on the back stretch so as soon as I finished muscling around the turn I was getting blasted.
Anyways, despite the conditions I decided to get my Trevor Dunbar on and just go for it, and I'm pleased with how this workout went. A tempo on a cold and windy day is always gonna be tough, and the turn one conditions made it much more so, but I felt like the effort was right and that I had a hard but controlled run. Continuous tempos on the track are always a bit of a mental challenge so running one at a consistent pace is at least a nice plus, I feel pretty confident that I would be averaging the 5:40 I was hoping for today in better conditions. Running in lane 2 on one turn + drifting around to avoid ice + physically being slowed by the snow all directly slowed me down, but I feel like a big factor was also the steeple effect... it's draining to have to work really hard for 70m of every lap.
Wanted to do some 200s after this but didn't think it was worth it in the state of the track. Feel like I am missing out on rep work but that's what races are for! IF the track is in a much better place on Thursday I will crib a speed workout from last year that I did before Dartmouth, else I will probably just do some sort of steady / progression run, because hey, all aerobic work is good. Excited to race on Sunday, although I'm a little nervous that the snowstorm we are gonna get this weekend will make it hard to get to the race / make it hard to do a long cooldown in Boston afterwards (I was hoping to run an hour+ after the race as a "long run"