Last week was 6 x 800 (averaged 3:18). This week would be 10 x 400. My goal was just to run really fast, and I hoped I could do 90 seconds per lap. As I trotted the mile to the high school, I wondered if I would be stymied by graduation. Sure enough, as I pass the auditorium, I see kids in cap and gowns! Dangit! I continued on to the track anyway, forming a backup plan of doing 400s on the beach bikepath.
Luckily the football field was empty and the track was open with just a handful of runners. Chairs and a stage were setup on the field - graduation must be tomorrow. Phew! I guess the kids were just picking up gowns.
During my warmup I was tracking my heart rate, and dropped to a walk every time it got up to 160, which was after about 30 seconds of running. It doesn't take much to get it up during that first mile! I took it real slow. Here is the chart. You can see once I started the intervals that it was over 185. I maxed out at 190 on my last one! And I think my true max is higher because that wasn't the hardest workout in the world. Back in high school I recorded a 208 (by counting heartbeats) during hill intervals. I guess it is good that it hasn't dropped too much?
Anyway, the intervals were fun. I was running at maybe 90% effort. It's fun to just push it and run fast. The first 200 meters are fun, the 3rd 100 starts to hurt, but then the 4th 100 you can see the finish and push it in, so the pain is not so bad. because you know you are almost done. I didn't go all out, so I wasn't getting rigor mortis or anything, but it was fast. On the last one, I reached for another gear, and found it! The suffering was higher, but it felt good to see that I could go even faster. Even after 10. So next time I will be pushing a little bit harder.
My rest intervals were 300 meters. I trotted real slow, and walked about 50 meters of the 1st 100. My HR got back into the 150s before I started up again. So anyway, here are my splits:
90, 90, 91, 90, 89, 92, 91, 92, 89, 88 to average 90.2
I didn't need to add any extra rest breaks, and I wasn't dead at the end, so it was very encouraging. A sub 6 mile seems a ways off, but a few more months of these workouts should make me faster, right? There is a 1-mile road race in August I am hoping to do. Plus a few 5Ks.
Next week I am joining a local run club that does track work weekly. The "coach" will determine the workout. All the fast local runners are in this group, but I won't be the slowest one either. Should be fun, and having others to run with will help me push it.
No comments:
Post a Comment