3 mile time trail and 8 x 200
This week, I am a partier by night and logging miles by morning. This sounds like I am burning the candle at both ends doesn't it.
This morning Megan was willing to run some easy miles around the track while I ran my up tempo workout on the track.
I am still early in my training cycle so I don't want to do anything too crazy.
Today, my workout was a 3 mile tempo with a quarter mile recovery. This was followed by 8 x 200 with a recovery 200.
We ran up to the track which gave us about 3 miles total for a warm up.
Then, I started my workout. The temperature was still in the low 30s and the sun had yet to rise above the tree line. Trying to shift my legs into a higher gear the process didn't want to go smoothly. My hamstrings, quads, and glutz were feeling extremely stiff. I hoped that it would shake off after a couple of laps and it did. But I still felt like I was slugging it out through mud.
4 laps into the 12 laps, I clicked the mile split. When I held up my Garmin to see the split, the sun was right in my eyes. I thought it said 6:48. The way my legs felt 6:48 seemed to be about right. I churned through another 4 laps and hit the 2nd mile split. This time I could see it clearly: 5:47. Wow, I knew then by the effort that the first mile split wasn't 6:48 but 5:48. Megan was yelling encourage from the side lines and I needed it for the last mile. I tried to just relax and keep the pace the same as much as I could. I never looked at my Garmin between the mile splits. I only listed to my breathing and monitored the general effort that I was putting out.
I circled the track 3 more times and hit the final mile split: 5:44.
I have no idea where this effort came from. I finished off the 8 x 200 with 200 recovery and we headed back down the hill for the cool down part of our run.
That's when Megan says that she isn't up for 7:15 pace recovery cool down and if I wanted to go on that I could. No, I was quite willing to slow it down, but on the inside, I did enjoy the moment at least a little. Usually, the shoe is on the other foot. I have left everything on the track and I am creeping along trying to keep up with Megan as we cool down. Although, I usually just suck up and run. LOL. I mean after all "she is a girl" albeit a fast girl.
Sharing one thought at time,
The Cool Down Runner
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