I Havn't Raced A Race Yet

It is strange, the year is half over and I havn't raced a speed race yet. By that I mean really racing to the point you are wondering why you signed up and wishing you could catch your breath even for a second, when the mind tries to convince the body that you can't continue, the heavy lactate buildup in the muscles cause the legs to feel like there are weights attached to them.....in the end realizing that fast pace you hoped for.

I hate that racing feeling during the race yet love the result as I finish. It is an aquired taste and to do well, you have to keep experiencing the uncomfortable feeling that acompanies racing.....the more you do it....the more your body accepts it. You get used to that feeling and can run longer and faster as time goes on.

I havn't done that. I surely have run fatigued as the 50K is all about that and I did do the 10 miler in February but incorporated a 5k right before and a 2.5 miler right after to simulate a 16 mile speedup run, but outright raced? No.

I guess that is what track workouts are all about and I sure have been getting mine. It seems the coach this year is pushing much harder than I remember in years past. Though I must admit that in the last two years, by the time June ended, I was injured in some way and skipping track altogether.

I had a chance to race last weekend and opted to run a trail workout instead. I am wondering if I made the right decision for race base but I sure did work on trail running and core. Besides that I got in a long run that I really enjoyed. So what is more important?

Last night's track workout was beasty and I am actually suprised I made it through. I started with two warmups, 1.5 mile @ 8:32 pace and .75 mile @ 9:13 pace. Then after all the stretching, hopping, skipping and form runs, we hit the hard stuff.

It was odd to hear the coach say we would be transitioning to speed work......what? I thought for sure the sub 7 minute intervals for the last few weeks were speed work.
It sure as hell felt like it.

So tonite we started with 6x200@ 100% of our individual mile time trials with full recovery 200s between sprints. I was shooting for .52 splits which actually was A bit faster than 100% of my trial.... which was 7:08 pace but only three days after the 50k, so I am probably faster than that. Well I averaged 6:40 pace with my fastest @6:29.

From there we had to run a ladder, 400,800,1200,800,400 @95% of Time trail with 100 jogs between sprints but not into recovery (meaning not letting the heart rate drop more than 10%) I was shooting for 7 minute pace but ended up running an average of 6:45 with the last and fastest at 6:16 pace.

We were then allowed to catch one or two breaths before starting the 6x200s all over again. As before, I was shooting for .52 second sprints (7 min pace) but pulled off an average of 6:24 pace with the last and fastest one being 5:21 average with a kick @ 5:04. Boy was I spent after that.

I only managed a .75 mile cooldown before I started getting chillled from the combination of rain and the heat of sprinting, so I decided to head home. Actually it ended up being over 8 miles of track workout anyway.

I thought about running a speedy 3 miler Wendesday but I may opt to rest...we will see.

Total workout 8.1 miles.