Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Restraining myself...

I don't think i'm learning to run my VO2s at the proper pace. Today was 8 miles plus track work (5x600), which I'm quickly starting to love. It's painful but you can feel the dividends.

I ran about 4 miles to the track of a high school in central downtown. The school was holding tryouts (or workouts) for its football team, so in the infield, about 60 teenagers were doing wind sprints and other footbally things. It was late afternoon and the sun was brilliant. I warmed up and went right to work.

I was targeting about 2:20 to 2:25 600s. Did 90 second jog/walk recoveries

1. 2:09 186 max bpm
2. 2:18 186 max bpm
3. 2:20 186 max bpm
4. 2:22 185 max bpm
5. 2:23 185 max bpm

The first one was crazy fast, as if I were doing my 100 strideouts. I guess the testosterone on the field was transferred on to the track. I retrained myself and started to run more consistent laps, although you can see I slowed over the five. For 400 of the 600 in each lap, I was running into a strong headwind, strong enough that I can see that when it pushed me, I was going quick.

The heart rate was pretty high 186 range compared with 182 high done a few weeks ago. The difference was this was afternoon, the other one was early morning. I was also very tired after little sleep.

Next week I have a 5x1000 which will keep me more honest by adding another loop around the track. No time for short sprint bravado. I'm going to target 4 minute kilometres or 6:26 miles.

2 comments:

Arcane said...

How were you feeling at the end of each interval? It's kinda hard to judge with the 600m how much farther they can be pushed.

Marky Mark said...

You're going about this very scientifically and with great discipline. I'll have to consult with you and your training manual if I take the plunge. Keep it up!

I've been doing the half preparation with my friends in a structured way but with less discipline I suppose. Sometimes I focus more on where the run ends and where we can go for breakfast than on my time....