Saturday, March 7, 2009

Rough interval workout

Today I was scheduled to run 16x800m repeats and I wanted to start with a mile to see how close I could come to 6:00. I felt good, rested, fed, ready to go, but mentally I was worried and negative. JRP came out to support me but I was beyond help. I got through the first half mile at a 6:08 pace, but could not sustain it and just stopped...quit. I've never done that before. I got to work on the repeats but each one was so hard. I got through 10 and was advised to cool down. Which now that I think about, I never did. More like fell over on the giant pole-vaulting marshmallow pad, under a crystal clear sky with just a whisp of a cloud. I didn't want to get up again....ever. It was too perfect.

My times today for the 800's (.51/52 miles) were 3:12, 3:16, 3:16, 3:24, 3:16, 3:23, 3:07, 3:14, 3:08, plus that 2:54 for .47 miles. That's an average of 3:15. Lap 14 was a 6:02 avg pace....close, now I just have to learn how to sustain it for a full mile. That requires an attitude I did not have today.

Considering that a month ago on 2/7, I did the 800s in 3:20 and 3:25 for an average of 3:22, today was an improvement. I wish I had known that this morning when my head went south. The moral of the story is (a) I need to go into speed work knowing what my times have been historically and (b) I HAVE to have goal times to pace myself. Jake pointed out I'm not recovering enough in between so the idea is to use the HR monitor to get to about 20 bpm over resting before starting again.

I will go for an easy 5-6 tomorrow just to run and be happy...to get that positive vibe back.