Saturday, September 27, 2008

5 under 6, and an actual off day!

After the Wednesday debacle at the track, Thursday called for an easy 5-miler after a good workout at the gym.  Friday's usually one of my double running days where I do 4 miles in the morning and 5 in the evening, but I was looking thru the log book trying to find the last time my legs had an off day.  Not from running, I make sure I have an off day from running once per week, but that "off day" is usually my heavy gym day and the legs get quite a workout.  I was looking for a true off day - a day where my legs neither ran nor got in a heavy lifting day. . . . and I had to go back to August - over a month.  So I changed it up and took a complete day of rest on Friday.

Of course, being the devious one that I am, I'm sure that somewhere in the back of my mind, part of the reason for the off day was because I knew damn well I was going to go out there and run that Threshold workout again on Saturday.  No school sessions, no stupid 'walk around the track' PE class, no slow walkin' ladies organizations. . . . and hopefully no men over the age of 120 in lane-1!!

Ah yes, a normal day - a few walkers in the outside lanes, a few runners in the inside lanes that you knew understood the "rules" and would move aside as I came thru.  It was about 10:15 am and already there was not a square meter of track that wasn't in the sun and the temps were climbing already (75 degrees at the start, about 82 by the end) but no big deal - I'd rather lose a few seconds/mile in performance than run this thing at 8:00 am (I'm just not doing that on a Saturday, or really any other day for that matter)

Without all of the insanity, my focus was better today.  First 2-miler in 11:55 (5:57, 5:58).  Now, Wednesday's insanity aside, I learned that running this thing strictly as planned was not going to net me more than 4 to 4.5 miles at pace unless the temps are in the mid 60's or lower - and w/ that not being the case today, I needed to call an audible on the "arrangement" of the miles in order to get in the volume I was looking for.  So first change-up, I upped my rest from 2-minutes to 3.  (not sure how much this helped because the HR didn't come down much in that last minute).  Next change - just run 1-mile here, which I did in 5:58.  Then take the rest again. . . and then get ready for the hard part - a finishing 2-miler.

Originally it was supposed to be 2-miles, 2-minutes and repeat - and I figured I could do 4-miles plus about 1000m this way.  So that would have been 2-miles - rest - 2-miles - rest - 1000m to 1-mile.  But with the adjustment it became 2-miles - rest - 1-mile - rest - 2-miles.  So more of the rest in the middle, leaving the really tough part until the end hoping that by being that close to being finished I'd make it through.  

The plan was successful.  I got in 5-miles.  Now, the last 2-miles were a little slower than the first 3 (6:02 pace) but I was OK with that - I got in the volume I was looking for and the average pace was still slightly under 6-minutes.

So no badges today - you don't get those until you complete the workout as it's drawn up.  This workout is on the schedule every 3-weeks until I hit it exactly.  The reality is even w/o the Barnum and Bailey Circus out on the track w/ me - getting 5 to 6 miles in at sub-6 pace just ain't all that easy for me yet regardless of how I "arrange" the miles.  (well, I guess if they were all 1-mile repeats I could do it OK, but 2-mile repeats make for a much tougher experience)

End result - happy to get the miles in, but hope to do better next time.  I've got 10-11 miles planned for tomorrow.  

Training:

9/25:  weightlifting (upper-B, abs, legs)  5-miles @ 7:18

9/26:  Off Day

9/27:  6.5 miles including 5 @ T-pace.  2-mile (11:55), 1-mile (5:58), 2-mile (12:04) 3-min rests

2 comments:

Grellan said...

I knew you'd get the 2 mile reps in before the end of the week - good consistent pace and all. Now you've got your base to measure the coming repeats againts.

bricey said...

nice workout even if not 'exactly' to plan. looks like your legs really benefited from the days off