5k Prep

I moved my typical Mon-Tues-Wed training out to Tue-Wed-Thurs and inserted a complete off day on Monday as I'm taking a down week here.  That meant lifting on Tuesday (although I skipped the dead lift and squat) and no running.  The two off days from running back-to-back really helped to clear up a few little nagging things, so physically I felt better after Tuesday.

Wednesday was an easy running day and today was my Threshold day.  Being that I haven't done any specific 5k training, or really any race training for that matter, (i.e. - no volume speed work, no VO2Max intervals, and not even any race pace efforts) I felt I needed to run something more up-tempo just to get me used to running faster.  

I talked to my coach and what she came up w/ was a race-pace type of workout (actually a bit quicker) that wouldn't be very taxing.  The plan was 10 x 400 broken down as follows:

5 x 400 @ 85 w/ 90-second breaks

5-minute break

3 x 400 @ 83 w/ 90-second breaks

5-minute break

2 x 400 @ 80 w/ 90-second break

This would get in some 5:20 - 5:40 pace running - 2.5 miles in all w/ the breaks being long enough to not make this too difficult a workout to recover from.

It went down like this:

first set - 89, 84, 83, 83, 84.  (first one was the "wake up quarter", first time running up-tempo @ 9:00 am)

second set - 81, 81, 80

At this point, the workout was feeling quite easy, but coach didn't want me going under 80 so I decided to shorten the rests for the last two.  (instead of 5-min break and 90-seconds between reps I went with 3.5 minutes and then 60-seconds between reps)

third set - 80, 78.  

All in all, not too bad.  Only issue is that the outside of my left quad feels a little weak right now - I have no idea what caused it, but I don't think it's very serious.  I'll have to see how it feels tomorrow.  

The plan is another easy day tomorrow, a short evening run on Saturday and then the race is on Sunday.  I don't have a specific target time in mind, I figure I'll go out in about 5:40 and then make adjustments as needed.

Training:

9/6:  Off Day

9/7:  No Running  lifting (upper-A, abs) stretching, rolling

9/8:  AM  4-miles very easy - 7:44 pace

          PM 4.5 miles easy - 7:08 pace

9/9:  4-miles including 10 x 400 in 89, 84, 83, 83, 84 - 81, 81, 80 - 80, 78