Surge and Recover workout

Oh, what a difference a week makes. Last week, my feet were digging at the soft dirt that we all know and love as McAlpine Greenway. My workout went awesome. This morning, those same legs seemed to have deserted me as I once again ran across the same piece of earth.
To give up some background info here, I have to share. Megan has started her build up in her Olympic trials training and I have more or less signed to be her mid-week punching bag. Not that I am complaining, the workouts are tough which only intern makes me better a.k.a faster. In a sense, I get as much or more out of it as she does.
Last week we did a session of 3 miles hard – 1 mile recovery, 2 miles hard – 1 mile recovery, and then 1 mile hard. My legs couldn't get enough of it.
This week was little something different. Depending on how one looks at the workout, we did 10 x 800 with 800 (hard) recovery or 10 miles with surge and recovery. We alternated between what I will call an easy 800 and a hard 800. Each one gets little faster.
At the start, our pace felt pretty easy. This got me thinking that I have this workout licked. But as the workout wore on, my legs were really starting to feel it. On the last ½ mile, my legs needed to run sub 3 minutes. Not happening. I crossed of the last ½ mile in 3:12. Megan was at least 15 to 20 seconds in front of me. Not that this struck me as odd, but she wasn't even breathing hard when I came up to the finish. I on the other hand found the last ½ to be run in what I will term a vacuum. Not enough oxygen going in my mouth through my lungs and out into my legs.
In retrospect, this was a good workout and I need to focus on that part. I'm in the middle of two 90 mile weeks so expecting a 46 year old body to suddenly have a huge explosion of speed is a bad expectation on my part.
Sometimes the mental aspect to running is tougher than the actual workouts. But it all comes down to believing in the workouts, the training, and my ability to a make it all pay off on race day.
Wait, when was the last time that all of the planets aligned. LOL.




Thoughts from the Cool Down Runner