I got up at 0430 this morning for my cruise interval practice. I warmed up with two miles in 17:46. I split those miles in 9:08 and 8:38. I did some pick-ups during my second mile and thought I shook the cobwebs out until I started my first cruise workbout. I started off a little on the slow side and when I checked my time at the 400 meter mark I was at 1:46. I stepped it up, or so I thought, and when I hit 800 my split was only 3:31. So much for ratcheting up the intensity. I eventually ended up hitting my mile split in 6:53.27 and finishing the last half in 3:25.87 for a total time of 10:19.14. I gave myself one minute to recover and started my second 1.5 mile interval. I hit my 800 split in 3:20.52 and made myself slow down a bit so I didn't run too fast. I must have fallen asleep because I glanced at my watch and saw that I was getting very close to running too slow and had to sprint to get back on pace. I ran the last mile of my seconds workbout in 6:52.02 and cruised to a time of 10:12.54. I walked for a minute or two, stopped and picked up .19 cents on the side of the road (that went into Nathan's piggy bank) and ran my cool-down in 9:47.
I feel okay about my practice today. I stayed on my pace for the most part but I had to rush to get on pace or back off to stay on pace and I don't feel I ran an even effort even though I ran decent times. I haven't really given myself an easy week of training and I expected to feel a little sluggish today but I feel that I shouldn't have had to scramble on this practice. I'm going to continue to take my generic claritin, get some good sleep the next few nights and run my 6 miles very easy on Friday morning.
Steamboat isn't a race I circled on my calendar so I'm not going to cry if I don't run as well as I'm hoping. I would like to run well next week at Scholastic Challenge and at Abe's Amble, if I can get that day off. The Sizzling Mile, the Parade Run and the PPR are also races that I have circled. According to the entry form for the Sizzling Mile, my age group record is 5:35.something. I have run 5:36 in practice so I think that I am going to break that record. The trick is going to be finishing ahead of anyone else in my age group that day so that I actually own it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Your experience brings up an interesting question on interval work. If you realize that you are off pace at an intermediate split, should you attempt to just get back to the desired pace for the rest of the interval OR should you compensate so that your final time hits the target.
I suspect that the former is physiologically preferred but the latter has some psychological merits. What do you think?
I see it both ways. I think that physiologically getting yourself on traget pace for the rest of the run is better because you're increasing your lactate threshold by staying on pace even though you're not going to hit your time goal. Psychologically I think that I am more of a wreck after this workout. I know I can run 6:51 pace for my practice but I had to run 1/3 of my rep at 6:44 pace to get back on pace. On the next rep I ran 6:40 pace for the first third and who knows what for the other 2/3? I know I had to sprint to run a 6:51 last mile which means that I was running slower than target pace.
I shouldn't have had to strain that much to nail this practice. There were other factors affecting my performance, most notably was my allergies making my sinuses fill up and having a bad headache that morning. I just couldn't seem to focus. I never hurt during the practice but my intensity was erratic and I just didn't care.
Good luck on Saturday.
25:44!!! Great race!!!
I ran pretty steady. It hurt though. Managed to barely run negative splits. Pretty happy with my time but not surprised. More later.
Post a Comment