Thursday, October 14, 2010

Last Track Workout

Morning y'all, it's almost the weekend, and I am itching for 2 days off to try and tackle this growing to do list I have!

We are now at T-9 days until the marathon, and after my last track workout last night, and talking with my coach for a while I feel better and a big bundle of nerves all at once now that other people are all paying attention to my running.


So originally we were supposed to be doing mile repeats last night, but when I got to the track, he had changed it to 3 x 5 minutes at tempo pace. Since I normally do actual tempo runs in the 8:20-8:30 range I figured I needed to be in the 7:55-8:00 range for just 5 minutes. We were essentially doing 5 minutes at tempo pace, and a 1 minute recovery jog to drop our HR back down before doing the next 5 minutes- to be honest, that seemed pretty easy to me. He offered to let me do 4 x 5 minutes with the first group, but I said no, this was not the time to test myself against the team speedsters. I decided that I needed to try to get in 1000m in each 5 minutes and that would make it more of a track session than tempo which is what I wanted since I already did my tempo on Monday :)

After a longerish warm-up, we lined up for the first 5 minutes, I was suprised how heavy my legs felt in the first lap considering how much energy I had bursting out of me all day, I seriously was bouncing off the walls and now my legs couldn't wake up- I guess this is the taper!

1.25 Mile Warm-up
5 Minutes- .67 miles (1000m) at 7:40 pace
5 Minutes- .63 miles (not 100m) at 7:58 pace
5 Minutes- .65 miles (almost 1000m) at 7:45 pace
.52 mile cool down = 4 miles for the day, right as I had planned :)


So yest I started a bit too fast on the first one, what else is new. My shin/calf pain magically returned at the end of the first 5 minutes so I backed off some during the 2nd rep to make sure I could finish strong. My legs really felt like lead during the whole workout though which really made me mad. It was obvious yesterday that I was SO well rested, and yet my legs couldn't perform, oh well, it could have been worse. I had lots of fun again last night, even more people were there since there were several who skipped last week due to races, but this is going to be a really fun group to train with. I am not going to go to the track workout next week because I know I would be too tempted.

I had planned to do an easy 4-5 miles this morning as a recovery and to shake out my legs, but my coach said I should wait 24 hours since I was tapering, so I have instructions to do my easy run after work (and class) tonight, and then my goal pace "long run" of 8-10 miles on Saturday.

4 comments:

  1. You've got this girl! Believe in yourself! Enjoy the weekend and the last of the taper!!!

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  2. You're fine! We tend to overanalyze everything during the taper! Shake it out and run after work ... even if just 3-5 miles!

    So soon!! :)

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  3. i'm itching for the weekend too. butttt because i want to cut loose and ignore my to-do list hahahah

    YAY for legs feeling good! you're doing the taper right :)

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  4. Wow, last track workout! Almost a week out!! You've got this!!

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