Speed Work

Another great day for running. I was a little bit nervous because the forecast had a 40% chance of rain. My Garmin doesn't like to behave in rain, but I needed to have it on hand for my workout. Today was a tough workout. It would be 16 x 400 meters in 70 secs with 1 minute rest.

A few months ago I would never have come close to completing this workout. But today I did. While doing this workout I came to realize what kind of change these types of workouts bring about. I noticed during the first the set my legs were tiring quickly. My theory is that my legs were more than capable of running at this speed. But they aren't used to running this pace so they tire quickly. The reason I say this is because my legs were tired on the 3rd rep but by the middle and end of my run I was actually running with less effort than before and sometimes running faster. So the purpose of these workouts is to get your legs used to moving at this pace or close to this pace for a race. By the 12th rep I was debating on whether to quit or not because I wasn't hitting 70 seconds but I realized I needed as many opportunities as possible to run sub 5 minute pace. So I made a pact that if I had difficulties staying below 5 minute pace I would quit. On my 14th rep I thought it was my 16th rep so I busted out a 68. I was feeling great about it when I realized it was only rep 14! So the next rep was run at 76 seconds. The last rep I recoverd with a 71.

One thing I learned from this workout is sometimes you don't have to focus too hard on hitting your time exactly. What you need to do is make sure you come close and run it smoothly and consistently. Overall it was a tough workout that I thoroughly enjoyed. Here are the splits.

16 x .25 miles in 70 seconds with 1 minute recovery

Lap 1	69
Lap 2	69
Lap 3	70
Lap 4	70
Lap 5	70
Lap 6	71
Lap 7	72
Lap 8	71
Lap 9	72
Lap 10	71
Lap 11	73
Lap 12	73
Lap 13	72
Lap 14	68
Lap 15	76
Lap 16	71

As you can see I'm not quite ready to ace this workout yet. But I don't think I'm far off and a few more speed sessions should do me some good.