Thursday, February 26, 2009

Back to the Track #6

After a week without any real speedwork in Hawaii, today was trackday.  Early start, but it was at least getting light when I set out, and it wasn't raining.  Headed to the high school track for a planned 6 x 1,200 meters in 4:30, with 90 second walk recovery in between reps.

My warmup for these is usally a couple miles, and I'll throw in about three 100 meter runs at goal pace (round 6:00).  Things felt fine and I lined up for rep #1.  4:30 makes the numbers easy, as it's 45 seconds for every 200 meters, or 1:30 per lap - easy to remember even when you feel like throwing up.  Here's how it went....
  1. 4:27 - went out fast as usual - first 200 in 41, settled down and ran on pace for the next 2 1/2 laps feeling pretty good - 87/90/90 laps
  2. 4:29 - fast start again at 42 seconds - 88/90/91 laps
  3. 4:29 - better start at 43 - laps of 88/90/91 - stomach started to go in last 100 m (checked to see if the bathroom was unlocked for future reference - it wasn't...)
  4. 4:30 - 44 for first 200 - laps of 89/91/90 - second lap I was hurting - last lap a definite push - very glad these weren't 1,600s
  5. 4:30 - 89/92/89 - last lap was a struggle after a very sloppy lap #2.  considered bagging rep 6 but somehow convinced myself to run it.
  6. 4:30 - 91 first lap, 93 second lap and feeling bad.  managed to pull an 86 out of my ass for lap 3 to make the time.  last 200 was in 42 - it was definitely race effort for last 75 meters
Average was 4:29 which I was happy with.  I have never hit more than 4 at 4:30 pace before, even when I was running 100+ miles per week.  Best I ever did before was 4:26, 4:29, 4:29, 4:30, 4:39 and the last one was ugly.  This chart shows the pace, and you can see the dip at the end of rep #6.  



Between now and Ottawa (12 1/2 weeks) I need to get the time for these down another 8 seconds to 4:21, which is 5:50 pace.  So next week it will be aiming for 4:29 again - hopefully I'll be able to hold it together thru at least lap 4 and only have to push hard for 5 and 6.  Then I get a week off speedwork due to the Shamrock Half Marathon.

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