dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

Total time of 52:00

TLDR: 5 x 400 w/200 recovery, except 400 recovery after the 4th rep.  Rep times of 1:11, 1:11, 1:12, 1:12, 1:14.  Recovery times of 1:11, 1:10, 1:12, 2:17.

Full Version:  As I stated on Saturday, I have felt like I need to work on my speed over shorter distances (400-mile), so today I decided to run a workout aimed at doing that.  I ran to the track at the middle school in order to run 400 repeats.  The track is made of asphalt and was covered in leaves and branches on the back stretch, so it isn't the fastest track around here to run on, but it is the only track within a short running distance of my house so I decided it was good enough.  I have also wondered if the track measurement is actually 1/4 mile instead of 400m because of the non-traditional make-up of the track, and some course tool estimates, in addition to my own estimates running on it on an easy run a while back.  Basically, my point is that I don't know for sure if I was running 400's or some other distance that is very close to 400m.

My goal for the workout was to try and hit 1:15 pace per repeat.  I was a little worried that this would be unsustainable so I set two goals for myself.  The basic goal was to run a minimum of 4 repeats.  If I started to struggle I would end the workout at whatever point after 4 repeats where I was unable to maintain pace to a reasonable degree.  The optimal goal was for me to run 8 repeats.  My suspicion was that I would end up running somewhere between 4-8 repeats but not actually hit either endpoint.  I decided to run 200m recovery because I wanted an active recovery and I thought that 400m would be too long, while 200m was pretty convenient in terms of knowing where my start and end points were (no marks on the track itself, but there were big cracks in the pavement at the approximate 200m and 400m marks).

After I got to the park near the track I first went to the bathroom and then ran a lap on the track with a 100m surge to try and figure out what effort to run at to hit 1:15 400 pace.  Once I started the workout I used a running clock so I don't have exact splits, but I started the first 400 repeat at the 15:20 mark of the run.  I ended up starting out too fast at the beginning of the first 400, but it didn't seem abnormally hard and I felt relaxed so I ended up deciding to just keep that effort up.  I finished the first rep in 1:11, followed by an equal recovery of 1:11.  The second rep also felt good, and I finished it in 1:11 again (1:10 recovery).  Starting with the third rep things started to feel hard and I finished this rep in 1:12 (1:12 recovery).  The fourth rep felt much harder, but I was happy that I was able to run another 1:12.

At this point I knew that a major slow down was coming for any additional reps, so I decided to run a 400m recovery with the goal of trying to run 2 more reps afterwards.  This recovery ended up lasting 2:17 (1:14, 1:03 for the 200m segments).  Unfortunately my legs still felt pretty fatigued at the start of this rep, however I was pleased that I was able to keep up a solid pace for the first 200m (approx 35.5 seconds).  Over the last 200m the wheels started to fall off and I struggled to maintain focus.  I ended up finishing the fifth rep in 1:14 (approx. 38.5 for the last 200m).  At this point I didn't feel like running any additional reps would be beneficial, so I ran my final cooldown 200m in 1:18 to get back to the start line and I ended the workout, having run approx. 2 miles total (counting recovery) in 13:08.

At this point I still had over 23.5 minutes left in my run, so I just ran easy, winding around some of the streets of Alpine until I finished the run at the house in 52:00.  My legs still felt fatigued even while running close to 8:00 pace at the end of the run (I timed the last 0.5 to the house in 3:55).  I am hoping that workouts like this and some continued consistency will lead to improvements over the next few months as I try and see what I am capable of.

Total time of 54:00

TLDR:  2 x 0.6 miles hard in 4:48 and 4:53 (uphill).  1 mile hard downhill in 4:30.

Full Version:  For today's run I wanted to build off of the idea that I need to build strength/speed, specifically at distances 400m-1mile.  I have also felt like I need to learn to utilize my quads more when running, so I decided to run uphill repeats on the same stretch of road where I ran an all out uphill mile a few weeks ago.  I felt like a mile was too long for the repeats, so I ran the repeats on the 0.6 mile stretch (approx. 313 ft elevation gain) starting where the road turns to go up towards the rodeo grounds, and ending at the parking lot to the national forest.  My original plan was to run 3 of these repeats, however after running 2 of them I felt like I should practice running fast too, rather than just running hard at a slow pace, so I ran a hard downhill mile (approx. 416 ft elevation loss) on the same stretch of road (I was also curious to see how fast I could "fall" down the mountain as I knew that the grade was so steep that I would be unable to actually run all out without more practice running downhill).

I made it to my starting point in a little over 15:30, and I jogged around a little more until I hit 16:00 so that I could have an even starting time.  The first rep started off well, and my quads were burning within the first 30 seconds because of the steepness of the grade.  My breathing quickly caught up and acted as a limiting factor.  There were a few times when I attempted to surge in order to keep the pace faster and avoid getting complacent.  Each time I did so my quads reminded me why I had slowed down to begin with, but I was happy to at least attempt to increase the pace even if it was not sustainable.  I finished the first rep in 4:48 (average 8:00 pace) and immediately turned around to go back to the starting line.

I made it back to the start line a little before 25:30, and I estimate that I averaged about 7:35 pace during my recovery as I ran back down the mountain.  I jogged a few seconds more and started the second rep right at 25:30.  I don't feel like I started the second rep as strongly as I started the first (still feeling a little fatigued from the first rep), and I feel like that is where the majority of the slowdown between reps came from.  After the first minute or so I feel like things were pretty equal.  I attempted to surge a couple times during this rep like I did during the first, and near the end I also tried to focus more on sustaining a strong pace without the surges.  I finished this rep in 4:53 (8:08 pace).

After I finished the second rep I ran around some of the trails at the entrance to the national forest until my watch hit 35:00 (recovery of a little over 4:30).  I then stopped my watch and walked over to the start point for the downhill mile.  I rested for another minute or two before starting the mile.  The mile did not feel as hard as the 0.6 mile repeats, but I could still feel the fatigue in my legs from the uphill repeats as I ran down the hill.  My feet were getting shoved to the fronts of my shoes, making me wish that I had tied my shoes differently.  I could also tell that I don't have lots of recent downhill running experience as running down the hill felt uncomfortable to the point that I felt like I was unable to utilize the elevation loss adequately.  Once I hit the 0.6 mile mark (split time of 2:38, average pace of 4:23) the grade levels off a little, only dropping about 100 ft over the last 0.4 (compared to over 300 ft during the first 0.6).  It was at this point that I started to really feel my legs burn as I finally had to start working harder to maintain the pace I was running at.  I ended up hitting the mile mark at 4:30 (1:52 last 0.4, average split pace of 4:40), making this the fastest mile that I have run since the beginning of the Des News 10k back in 2010 (I think I split sub 9:00 for the first 2 miles that day), although I may have run a mile faster on the treadmill back in early 2011... I'll have to check.  Maybe if I keep at it I will be able to break 4:30 for a legit (flat road or track) mile someday as I never made the effort to do so when I was younger.

After finishing this mile I kept the effort easy for the last 14:30 of the run until I reached the house in 54:00.  My legs felt pretty fatigued during the cooldown.  I'm hoping that this will provide a good stimulus for improvement moving forward.  At some point once I finish building up to my initial goal base mileage (1:20:00 per run M-F plus a long run) I may also start running 3 hard workouts per week instead of 2.