Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Mile Repeats and Doubling Up

Wednesday is my speedwork day.  Recently, I've been running half mile repeats and building up.  I was up to 8 repeats last week.  I decided that today I would extend my repeats to a mile each and drop down to just 3 reps.  I will continue building on these mile repeats from now until close to my half marathon run.

I wasn't sure what the weather would bring, so I wanted to get out early and run.  It was actually quite chilly and in the 60s when I started out after 8 AM.  I decided I would run on the Saucon Rail Trail.  It has been awhile since I've been there.  The trail is well maintained, doesn't have too many road crossings and also has quite a bit of shade.  It was so cool that I probably could've done without the shade.

I went to the bathroom before starting out.  As I was heading to my car to get my running gear on, I noticed a familiar car and person.  It was Dave from the Breakfast Club.  I first noticed him because of his BCR logo on his car.  We chatted briefly and I told him I was doing speedwork today and had to get started early.  He took off well before I was ready.  If I was just doing a slower run, I might've joined him.

I started with a nice warmup.  My legs felt quite weak at the beginning.  The warmup is certainly a big plus.  By the time that first mile was complete, I was ready to go.  The plan was for 3 X  one mile repeats under a 7 minute pace.  I figured that could be tough because I was keeping the same pace, but doubling the distance of each repeat from half a mile to a mile.  I decided I'd allow myself a third of a mile recovery time rather than a quarter mile.

I was hoping Kelley would join me, but I never heard back from her.  I knew that would make this workout tough.  What also made it difficult is that the path goes slightly uphill on the way out.  I had to push quite hard to hit my goals.

I went hard and felt alright in the first repeat.  I passed Dave going the other way.  I was working so hard that I could only give him a smile or a nod.  I passed a lot of people while going fast and I didn't want to be rude, but it is hard to acknowledge them at such a hard pace.  I was surprised that Dave wasn't going farther, but he has been dealing with an injury.

My pace slipped slightly in the second half of my first rep.  I was happy to see I wasn't falling off too bad.  I was very winded and this was hard work.  I hit my goal for the first one at 6:55.  I was wondering how I'd recover in such a short period of time.

I came back okay though.  I figured that I would turn around halfway through the second rep.  I knew that would at least allow me some downhill running on the back half.  I just had to get to that point.  I pushed quite hard again and just focused on the first half of the repeat.  I had to cross one road and just made it around some walkers going around some gates.  They didn't slow me much.  What did slow me was turning around.  My pace suddenly went just over 7 minutes.  I figured I could keep going and get it back down.  Turning around and regaining momentum is usually tough.

I was definitely right with my prediction of how the downhill second half of the repeat would be.  That was a big plus.  I still had to work my tail off, but it felt easier and my pace got faster.  I was very happy to be under my goal for the second repeat.  I was quite exhausted though.

I recovered well again and I was on to my final repeat.  I knew this was about my limit, so I was glad to be almost done.  I started off very fast.  I'm not sure if my Garmin was correct as it said my pace was barely over 6 minutes.  Either way, I was still comfortably under my goal pace throughout this rep.  I just kept focusing on getting to the next quarter mile.  First it was to .5 miles, then .75 miles.  I was surprised to see that pretty late in this repeat my pace was still around 6:40.  There was a slight uphill finish, so my pace wasn't as fast over the final two tenths of this rep.  I just kept pushing though.  I cruised a little in the final tenth.  It was great to be done with the tough part of the workout.

I followed that up with a mile and a third cooldown.  I wanted to get to 6 total miles for the run.  I had to cross a couple roads in this slow mile plus, but thankfully not too many while I was pushing the pace.  It worked out quite well.  I was impressed with how many people were using the path.  Because I was a little short on distance when I got back to the Water Street Park, I continued north on the trail until I hit my desired distance.  I then walked back a short distance.

Even with the cooler temperatures, the hard running still soaked my singlet.  The nice thing was how quickly I cooled off once I stopped.  I'm also happy to report that I had no chafing issues.  I picked a good time to run.  I can't wait for weather this cool to be a regular occurrence.

I was thrilled to hit my goal on this run.  I'm not sure what next week will bring.  I think adding another repeat could be tough.  I'll just have to see what happens.  If I would've missed my goal, I would've repeated this week's run again.  Now, I'll just add a 4th hard mile.  I'd like to get up to at least 8 mile repeats before running my half marathon.

All this cutting back this week has made a huge difference.  Even after a hard run, my legs felt so fresh.  They are well rested and have some pop in them.

There was really no point in a second run today, so of course I went on one.  I didn't run as far as I wanted on Monday, so I tried to make it up with a late afternoon easy 3 miler.  I guess this would definitely qualify as junk miles.  It is especially useless since it is my cutback week.  Who cares if I ran 29 miles instead of 32 miles?  Of course, I (Mr. Numbers) do.

I went out to the Nor-Bath Trail.  I wanted an easy 3 miles.  I decided to run from Bicentennial Park so that I didn't have to cross Airport Road.  As I was driving in, I already saw that that was a good choice.  A group of 5 or so guys had to stop to cross that road.  I assume it was the Northampton Cross Country team.

I went shirtless, but probably didn't have to.  It finally felt like a fall day today.  I actually wore my grey shorts and they didn't even get that sweaty.  There was a nice breeze going too.  It was a great day for a run.

I ran toward Airport Road.  I was thinking that I'd be able to do about a half mile out before turning around.  Regardless, I figured that I would run until Airport Road.  The legs felt great when I began and throughout the run.  I started off nice and easy.  The pace for that first mile was comfortable and just under 9 minutes.  It was perfect.

I was surprised that I was able to go so far before coming to Airport Road.  I ended up getting to 1.25 miles before turning around.  Earlier, I thought I had heard someone behind me.  It was probably just my feet.  When I did turn around, I noticed that a speedy high school girl wasn't far behind me.  I love how high school kids are really the only fast runners that still wear T-shirts.  They are easy to tell by that.

The young girl ruined my whole run.  Even though she kept going and didn't turn around like me, I ended up running as if she was stalking me.  My stupid competitiveness always comes out.  I ran faster than I should've for the rest of the workout.  Eventually I came to a group of about 5 more young girls.  That must have been the rest of her team.  If it was and they started at the same time, I'm very impressed.  She was probably a quarter mile ahead.

I continued running and ended up passing the guys from the team.  At first I was thinking that maybe they were running from Northampton High School, but seeing them where I did on the trail, that wasn't possible.  They were still logging some good miles.  I think I saw the girls doing drills at Jacksonville Park as I was on my way home.

The rest of my run was uneventful, although it was too fast.  I came back to Bicentennial Park and was at 2.5 miles.  It was nice to almost be done.  I ran a half mile out and then turned around and walked back.  I came across a few adult runners too.  It was a busy day on the path.

It was a good second workout of the day that didn't feel too taxing.  I am a little sore afterward.  I'm thinking that my shoes are really coming to the end of their life and causing me problems.  Too bad I can't afford new ones.  I still ran much too hard in this second run.  The last mile was under a 7:45 pace.  All in all, it was a good day.

Now we'll see how well my body can recover.  I'll be running again tomorrow morning before we leave for a weekend auto race in Baltimore.  That will be three runs within a 24 hour span.  It will be good practice for the future though.  Some time later in the fall or during the winter, I'm going to start with running two times a day.  I have to do that to get to 80+ miles a week.

I have no idea where I'm going to run tomorrow.  I'll determine that in the morning I guess.  It is going to be another easy 5 miler.

6 miles - 45:56 (7:40 pace) AM
3 miles - 25:00 (8:20 pace) PM

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