Wednesday, February 18, 2009

I Speak Track

Tonight's track workout made my head spin the first time I read it:

6x800 @I=Interval pace
4x100 @R=Race pace
400/100 recovery

I mean seriously. That's almost as bad as swim workouts!

With my handy magnifying glass, a sturdy cup of tea, and a thesaurus, I uncovered the hidden meaning:

Run around the track twice (=800), six times, at your interval pace (according to the chart our coach had previously given to us based on our 10k pace—calculate your own track paces with McMillan's race calculator—it's endless good fun!)

Wait, where was I?

Right: run around the track twice (=800) six times at your interval pace: 5:00 minutes.
After each 800, run once around the track (=400) to recover.
After you finish all of that, THEN run 100 meters (the straightaways) at your Race pace: :34 seconds, with 100 meters recovery, and do THAT four times.

Oh yes and don't forget to warm up for 1 mile and cooldown for one mile.

As usual, I was in No Mood. My pace group has dwindled from 10 or so women to me and one other chick (the one I lied to last week, heh). We are well matched. She was in No Mood either.

Here's how it all Went Down:

1 mile warmup: 12:14

6x800 @ 5:00 minute pace/400 recovery
1st 800: 4:47
2nd 800: 4:57
3rd 800: 4:56
4th 800: 4:59
5th 800: 4:59
6th 800: 4:54

Next: 4x100 @ :34minutes/100 recovery
1st 100: :29
2nd 100: :27
3rd 100: :29
4th 100: :26

1 mile cooldown: 12:15

We totally could have done the 800s faster, but I kept slowing us down so we would hit our pace. The 100s we did faster than we were supposed to because we both just wanted to get it the hell over with. When I play with McMillan, I get an 800 time of 4:41.1 to 4:54.1, so no comprende where the coach is getting 5:00 minutes from, not that I'm complaining.

I just do what the man at the front of the room tells me to do.

11 comments:

Kelly said...

I used to be on track, and I HATED interval workouts (I didn't understand why I couldn't just hurdle every single day). But now that I'm older and I hate running long distances, intervals are actually starting to sound fun!

ItchyBits said...

ooooooo you make me laugh

Petraruns said...

Those are some serious workouts girl! You'll be feeling those benefits!

Thomas said...

It sounds like you learned a new language.

Maybe you should talk to your coach about the slow paces - but you might end up hating yourself during the following workout if you do so!

peter said...

Those are seriously good times. And you were holding back for the good of the team! You have come a long way! Track, dontcha lovit?

Danielle in Iowa in Ireland said...

Those calculators never work for me. I get completely different results depending on which race distance PR I put in. I have just decided that they are not designed for people with no endurance like me :-)

ShirleyPerly said...

Wow, sorry to hear your pace group has gotten so small! We had some major attrition too but always had at least 6-8 people to suffer with, not that any of them were really my pace. Way to stick with it and get the workout done!

Rainmaker said...

Very nice. Sounds very similiar to my track workout I'm just about to walk out the door to do. Ugh.

Clearly you're no longer 'not born to run', if you're doing track workouts.

Runner Susan said...

I used to speak track . . . now i just speak slow.

LBTEPA said...

You are SO HARDCORE!

Judi said...

trackwork is great fun jeanne. yesterday we did 5x1200 - and it's helping my speed a lot. hope it does it for you too.