Two speed workouts

On Tuesday I wasn’t feeling great in the morning, but convinced myself to head to the park for a planned speed session of 8 x 400 m intervals in 1:30 with 400 m jogging recoveries.  After a warmup lap and some stretching, I still wasn’t really feeling it, but I got into the groove after the first interval and completed the 8 in:  1:25, 1:30, 1:21, 1:26, 1:26, 1:27, 1:27, and 1:23.  The recoveries were legitimate jogs between 10:00 and 11:00 min/mile.  I didn’t do any walking until a 1 minute walking rest between the final interval and my cool down jog.  I wasn’t all that pooped during the cool down either so I’m definitely leaning toward moving up a VDOT.

Today, I woke up a little early to drop Alice off at school so she could catch the bus to the cross country district meet.  I then drove immediately to the park where the meet would be held and set off for a short tempo run.  The park borders part of the Pinellas trail, a long “rails to trails” project that offers a pretty uninterrupted course for a tempo run thanks to pedestrian bridges over the major roads.  The goal was 2 miles easy, 2 miles in 14:00, 2 miles easy.  Again, I wasn’t really feeling it, but the workout didn’t seem too intimidating.  I set out on the trail, figuring I’d run two miles easy out and then two miles fast back followed by a 2 mile cool down on the cross country course.

The 2 miles out felt harder than “easy” should.  I encountered only one pedestrian bridge (the only hills we get in Florida) on the route. On the way back, I kicked it up to 7:00 min/mile pace and felt a struggle to hold the pace.  It just felt more uncomfortable than it should have.  About halfway through my fast 2 miles, I hit the bridge and powered up.  I thought the bridge might kill the workout, but it actually built some confidence.  When I reached the top, it hadn’t hurt as bad as I thought it would and I thundered down the other side with less than a mile to go.  I eased off the pace a little, but then found I was lagging again, so I kicked it back up and finished the “fast” two miles in 13:44.  I finished off the workout with 2 easy miles at the park.

So, that’s two pretty solid speed workouts I suppose.  I’m happy with them anyway.

As for Alice, she finished 35th in the cross country meet.  She moves on to regionals by virtue of her team’s 5th place finish.  It’s going to take some extra effort by the whole team to finish in the top 6 next week to move on to state, but it’s very doable.  Should be exciting!