Ass Kicking At track

7/21/09
Tuesday

The track workout seemed excessive when I read the email, I was hoping for an easy rain because I knew it would be extremely hot attempting this workout. I got my wish as there was a steady rain during most of the session.

To start with I planned a mile or so warm up but by the time I was done talking I had run 3.01 miles. Oh well it was quite easy and I didn't think at the time it would affect me too much....that was until I started working out.

I can't blame the difficulty of this workout just on the warm up though as I set my goals a bit agressive. We run intervals at a percentage of our mile time trial. I hadn't run one since the first of June so I wasn't really sure how much I might have progressed.

My June time trail was 7:10 and that was done alone with no competition so I figured I probably could have done at least 7 min and now that a few weeks have gone by, probably a bit faster. Somehow I translated that into 6:50 mile pace....not sure what I did to decide that but like I said, probably a bit agressive.

After the stretching and form runs,which included lunges,butt kicks, skips, leg lifts and step up speed sprints (equaling about .5 miles), the plan was 4x200 intervals @ 110% of mile time and 100 jog recoveries between.

I figured my pace should be about 6:08 for 110% of 6:50. Somehow I ran the 4x200s at an average of 5:43 pace. Though I kept telling myself (and my group) that we should slow down..(and they agreed) we still ended up running the faster pace.

I knew it would probably come back to haunt me during the 800s, but luckily they were at 95%.....so much better, or so I thought. The plan was 4x800s on the track then 1x800 on the double hill (to simulate pace on two uphills and two down hills) then right back to the track for 2 more 800s.

I think the coach was snickering behind our backs on this plan as he knew the hill work would throw off our workout and cause us to really suffer during the last two 800s. He was right of course. The first four 800s went pretty good, then we got carried away on the hills and somehow it felt like a race.

This was all fine and dandy until I started the final two 800s....damn, my legs were like concrete pillars and I felt like my form was all off.....and we had 4 more 200s to do after...I was having trouble visioning being able to run the 200s.

All said and done, the 800 splits were planned at 95% of mile time or 7:08 pace. I got carried away..again.... and ran an average pace of 6:49, but the hill work was at 7:02. The whole group was complaining about the 200s to come and they decided to take a break and rest before starting them.

I didn't think it was a good idea as we would tend to stiffen up a bit and the 200s would probably feel much worse....so I just jumped right into them alone. I was right as the group said after how tough it was to get into the 200s after resting for 10 minutes or so.

Being right was not rewarding at all as I really struggled with the pace and recieved a serious butt kicking on the 4x200s. I planned 110% or 6:08 pace but just couldn't find that gear. My average was 6:20 pace, though my last 200 was at 5:44 pace (it seems I just have to kick at the end of any run).

I did enjoy watching the rest of my group suffer as they were still running their 200s when I finished. Boy did they look beat. I only cracked a little smile on the outside but was laughing quite hard on the inside.

Well, any good workout deserves a cooldown run and this was no exception, though I really felt like just slumping into my truck and just driving home by this time.
I ran a seemingly easy cooldown of .81 miles at a respectable 8:59 pace.

The coach say's that if you can't finish the workout at the planned pace then you didn't do it right.......Yeah, like he didn't plan on a bunch of sore butts after this
extensive workout that he called "a step down workout because most of the runners were signed up for a 5K this Sunday."....What?... A step down? I figured it was good thing cause a "step up" would surely have killed me!

All said and done the workout was:
Warmup run
form running and stretching
4x200@110%
7x800@95% (#5 being a hill workout)
4X200@110%
cooldown run

Total miles for the night 9.9 miles and boy was I beat.