Today’s workout was a play-it-by ear sort of run. My “training schedule” (I use the term loosely, because it’s less structured than what I usually have, but mainly about getting in some miles until I start a more official plan in June) had “Workout TBD” on it. The forecast had potential morning thunderstorms, and I was coming off a weekend of a Saturday 5K and Sunday long run, so I just decided I would see how the weather was and how I felt when I woke up, then go from there. I hoped to get some quality work in since I have a June 10K planned, and I also didn’t want to push it back to tomorrow since I have a half marathon race on May 14, so if it didn’t happen today it wouldn’t happen this week.
After storms overnight, the weather was fine (just humid), and after a non-running day yesterday I felt good enough to give speed work a go. I decided I would do 2 x 1 mile repeats to start, then evaluate how I felt and either stop there or add another 1 mile repeat or 1-2 half mile repeats.
I warmed up for 2 miles, then started repeat #1 on a course I’ve done mile repeats on multiple times in the past, but not for nearly a year. I looked back at my training log from last spring recently, because I feel like my fitness is pretty similar at present to what it was then (by some miracle), and I remembered seeing that my best mile repeats on the course were three of them in 6:08-6:09, so I made that pace my goal. The mile stretch of road I used for these has an uphill start and rolling hills, but the final 0.15 is down a nice decline so I enjoy that! Plus, it’s a good strength builder for races with elevation changes (i.e., every race in the Ozarks). It’s not as fast as the track or the YMCA loop I often run speed work on, but I’ve run it enough to know what it translates to on the track, and that is minus 10-15 seconds.
I finished my first repeat in 6:05, which was actually a 3-second course PR! I went out a little fast considering the uphill start, so hoped that wouldn’t hurt me during the rest of the workout, but I felt pretty decent. I ran a mile recovery, which is longer than optimal but I wanted to run the exact same course again, so had to run back to the start. My second repeat was 6:08, and I was disappointed that it wasn’t faster than #1, but it was good enough to tie my old course PR. At that point I decided I would not do a third mile repeat due to being in the midst of three race weekends in a row, but would do a half mile repeat. So I jogged a half mile recovery then ran a half mile in 2:59. Then I did the same again, with the second half mile in 2:58.
So all in all, 2 x 1 mile then 2 x 0.5 mile. With my 10K race on June 4, I want to get a few solid workouts in between now and then, and this was a nice start. I have some work to do, but I am excited to do it!
No comments:
Post a Comment