Week 4 of the 3 x 2 mile workout! And it's in the books...much improved from weeks past, I may add!
I have been doing this workout each week at the same park, same route, and on Thursdays except for last week when I was traveling for work an opted for Friday (the 13th!)
It's not a flat route, it actually has a pretty long steep climb in it, about the 0.25-0.5 point. It then goes downhill about the same grade, the last mile is pretty much flat, which is the hardest part, for me at least! It's where I go from a steady 6:05-6:08 pace to 6:10-6:15. I have to focus harder and keep digging deeper to stay under the 6:20 marathon goal pace.
The warmup and cool down are from my house over to the park, and I usually carry a bottle of water to leave under a tree at the start/finish of the 2 mile loop.
Tonight I had to wait until an isolated thunderstorm passed through the area. It actually never rained at my house or in the park, but the thunder and dark clouds were a bit too close for my comfort.
Workout details
WU 2.6 mi
2 mile intervals:
1 - 6:15/mi pace
2 - 6:15/mi pace
3 - 6:16/mi pace
CD 3.3 mi
Finally some really good, close consistency, almost had all 3 the same (that's the idea with intervals)
Tip# 2
intervals have many benefits; if they are done right. The idea is to pick a pace that you can run, consistently for all of them versus running the first one at a super hard pace, but not being able to run the remaining intervals at a pace even close. (eg. of what not to do...3 x 1 mile; 1st 5:45, 2nd 6:05, 3rd 6:15; should have picked 6:01 pace to try and hit for all 3. It's great you can run 5:45, but you are trying to teach your body to run even splits in preparation for racing, which is a pace faster than your normal steady training run pace. In between each interval you are doing active rest (jogging)
At the start of my 2nd interval, I passed this lady walking her dog and then during the last 400m I came running towards her and she was yelling. I thought she was trying to tell me off or something, but when I got closer I realized what she was yelling..."How fast are you running anyway, like what pace?!" she said "you're amazing!" It was very flattering, as this was the portion of the interval where I am struggling!
So once the workout was over and realized I hit goal pace, I was so relaxed. But started thinking about next weeks episode, as it goes from marathon pace down to tempo pace, and then 2 weeks from now it goes up to 5 x 2 miles! Yikes!!
I'll cross those bridges when they come, instead I need to focus on my 2nd workout this week and my 22 miler Sunday! No Lake Placid, going to keep this one flat.
Well, my feet are tired, I need to rest and hydrate...onto tomorrow!
Harvest the Run ;)
4 comments:
That's great Eileen, intervals will get you where you want to go, teach your body the pace at which you want to race, 16 years running is terrific, wait until you hit 50 years of running, :)
I just finished reading ur blog to Will while he was eating his rice krispies n yogurt for breakfast. I asked him if he wanted to go to see u run the marathon and he said, "Oh and ride the rides, and do they have horses? They have carousels I think...at the marathon!"
Great job, we look forward to ur next post. BTW, maybe u could take Will n Ava in the jogging stroller for ur next LP run :)
tell him and her that in Lake Placid there is horseback riding and tons of other fun things to do there. I hope next spring or summer we can all go there together and stay for a few days!
I am not sure I could run as fast on that route pushing them up the mountains, but coming down they would have a blast!
I think its cool you have a running blog, a lot of the New England area runners keep blogs. I'm also running Hartford on Oct. 9th. My last race, the BOF 10k went horribly, but workouts have been good overall. We did 2x4miles last night, 21:06/21:36 at the Nisky Bike Path. The rain missed us.
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