Six by Eight

Wednesday means up-tempo, so I headed for the track to get in my 6 x 800m workout.  But before getting to that, here's an interesting little story about a college kid that apparently isn't all that bright.  As I pulled into a nearly full parking lot at the community college and started looking for a space, I was nearly clipped by some kid backing out without looking behind him.  After narrowly escaping the accident, I decided to go around him and look for another spot.  As luck would have it, I circled the small lot and there were no spaces available, "damn, I guess I'll have to go back and see if the spot where the kid pulled out is still open".  So I swing back around heading towards that spot and what do I see. . . . . the same kid standing behind his car next to another car.  Yeah that's right - this genius had just backed into someone else!! 

Now, I can see getting into an small accident in a parking lot - it happens.  What I CAN'T see is how someone who isn't looking and "almost" gets into an accident can make the same mistake a whopping 5-seconds later and hit someone else.  That takes real intelligence!  In fact, shouldn't there be a Bud Light commercial about this guy?  "Real Men of Genius" - Today we salute YOU, Mr. No-Look-Backer-Upper!  (I could go on here and write the whole commercial, but my posts have been long enough as it is)

On to the workout.  The plan was six 800m repeats w/ 2.5-min breaks.  The pace was to start around 2:52 (5:45 mile pace) and ramp down to about 2:40 (5:20 pace).  I was thinking something like this:  2:52, 2:50, 2:47, 2:45, 2:42, 2:40.  However, I knew there was a good chance that the reps would be a bit faster.  Here's the actual workout:

Rep #	Time	Ave HR	Max HR	HR- 128	HR Min
1	2:49	146	157	1:00	114
2	2:48	152	163	1:05	117
3	2:44	155	169	1:10	117
4	2:41	159	170	1:35	121
5	2:38	162	172	1:45	128
6	2:32	165	174	1:52

The 2nd to last column shows how long it took for my HR to get back down to 128.  (No specific reason why 128 is chosen other than that it's a point where I feel fully recovered, and I've been using this number to check recovery of many other workouts)  The last column shows the HR at the end of the 2.5-minute recovery period.

You can see from the data that the first 3-reps were pretty easy and I was able to recover down to a 117 HR or better for each.  The 4th rep maxed out at 170 HR which is what I believe to be close to the max of my Threshold zone  (using 92% of max HR for this calculation)  The recovery after rep #5 was substantially slower than the rest, so things were certainly changing by this time, but I still had no trouble running a 2:32 for the final rep. 

If I were to have kept the reps between 2:41 - 2:46 I feel I could have done 8 or 9 of these w/ no issue.  The workout never felt hard, on the contrary it was quite enjoyable the whole way, but that may be in large part because I simply love these types of workouts.  I came away feeling really good, and this morning there is no soreness or fatigue to speak of.  It was nice to throw a 2:32 up there after the 5 previous reps w/o really going ahead and "gunning it" - I could easily have run 2:20s here, but that wasn't the point of the workout.  Interested to see what coach makes of the data.

Training:

10/15:  5-miles including 6 x 800m @ 2:49, 2:48, 2:44, 2:41, 2:38, 2:32