Progressin'
Joseph has a good little write up of his tempo run from a few days ago which featured an original twist in it, and which was written so that after reading it it made me feel like going out to do the workout. Its not the first time he's written a workout in that style, and someday I will go out and do one of his workouts.
My tempo workouts are not replicable as they tend to evolve to fit the particular course that I run. Once I get a course down I'll repeat it through the training cycle and gauge my progress by the speed with which I'm able to take the tempo segments. I generally take these workouts like an officer with orders to take a hill - charge it in a serious, almost life or death manner.
Today things felt more lighthearted, perhaps thanks to Joseph, perhaps thanks to a feeling of confidence that I could parlay last Sunday's 10k effort into a sub 6-minute tempo pace. The workout felt more like a game with a high score to beat.
Up at 4:30, out the door a little after 5. Got to MLK and took off. First mile in 6:02, pace felt easier than Sunday, which is what I went with. Mile 2 in 5:59. Then I fell asleep in mile 3 with a 6:09 and, jolted by this, picked things up a bit to finish out four miles in 24:01. Broke 9 minutes for the first time this year running up the Bloody Nipple (8:54) en route to hitting Belmont Plateau in 16:24.
So I got my tempo pace down to 6 flat this morning. That's big psychologically, but I still want to get it down further. I looked through my old logs and see that the effort I did this morning puts me about where I was at in October 2006. I then ran some amazingly fast BN workouts in November of that year, culminating with this workout. Dunno if I'll be able to get down there again.
But for today I'm happy, and now look forward to Sunday, Cesar Rodney, and the Evil Killer Bunnies of Death.
13.5 miles on the usual BN course in 1:41:10.
My tempo workouts are not replicable as they tend to evolve to fit the particular course that I run. Once I get a course down I'll repeat it through the training cycle and gauge my progress by the speed with which I'm able to take the tempo segments. I generally take these workouts like an officer with orders to take a hill - charge it in a serious, almost life or death manner.
Today things felt more lighthearted, perhaps thanks to Joseph, perhaps thanks to a feeling of confidence that I could parlay last Sunday's 10k effort into a sub 6-minute tempo pace. The workout felt more like a game with a high score to beat.
Up at 4:30, out the door a little after 5. Got to MLK and took off. First mile in 6:02, pace felt easier than Sunday, which is what I went with. Mile 2 in 5:59. Then I fell asleep in mile 3 with a 6:09 and, jolted by this, picked things up a bit to finish out four miles in 24:01. Broke 9 minutes for the first time this year running up the Bloody Nipple (8:54) en route to hitting Belmont Plateau in 16:24.
So I got my tempo pace down to 6 flat this morning. That's big psychologically, but I still want to get it down further. I looked through my old logs and see that the effort I did this morning puts me about where I was at in October 2006. I then ran some amazingly fast BN workouts in November of that year, culminating with this workout. Dunno if I'll be able to get down there again.
But for today I'm happy, and now look forward to Sunday, Cesar Rodney, and the Evil Killer Bunnies of Death.
13.5 miles on the usual BN course in 1:41:10.
posted by seebo | 8:54 AM
1 Comments:
Seebo, thanks for the props.
I miss the Belmont Plateau. Many of my HS XC races where run on that particular land of torture (parachute hill, ah the memories). Anyhow, it's smart to alter the run to fit the terrain. For me, I'm doing a lot of flatish 10k/5k runs this Spring--with the exception of Charlotte--and I do a lot of hilly long progressions to counteract the flatness of my track tempos.
Anyhow, if you want a kickass workout that Joe Rubio sent me for marathon fitness--and one that I read about in Sandrock's running tough: 2x2 miles of 400m@5kP/400m@MarP--or even more torturous 4 miles straight of 5k/MP. I did this workout once and nearly barfed into a trash can. Then again, I was sleep deprived from a screaming newborn.
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