Tuesday, June 03, 2008

200s (or close enough)

Yesterday I did the standard 5 mile maintenance run, but once again was a little on the recovery side of maintenance. I threw in 4 or 5 striders on the grass field at the elementary school. I felt like I was going to hurt myself running on the uneven grass and I did -- but not too bad. I remember now why I stopped doing these things. Anyway, it's the ball of my left foot that hurts. Not sure what I did.

I ran this morning and forgot all about it. Didn't feel it at all. Did 3+ mile warmup and then set out to do the 200s at the elementary school track. The track is actually a crushed gravel 10-lap-per-mil job around the (little) baseball field. It's an accurate distance though if you stay outside the rail that seems to be failing to keep the gravel off the grass.

Anyway, I timed the intervals against my better judgment. The plan was to do 1 lap (~160m) on and one lap off. I figured the pace would be something like 1-mile race pace -- fast but relaxed. 6 min/mi is 36 secs per lap, which I would have called 1-mile pace before I opened the first mile of my last 5k in 6:01 (then faded to 6:21 pace overall). The first 5 went (from memory) 36, 35, 34, 34, and 33. I think my brain learned something during this exercise. On the first two, the hill running carried over and I ran with a much longer stride (more like sprinting than my usual shuffle). Before the third one, I remembered I was supposed to be thinking about fast turnover. The 5th one kind of came together. I felt like I was kind of stomping the ground and keeping my feet closer to the ground (less up and down). I took two laps rest after the 5th because I felt the effort increasing and wanted to keep this alactic. I did the next 5 in 33, 33, 33, 33, and 33. How's that for consistency?

I finished with a 3+ mile cooldown for 8.7 total. In the last 100 meters or so I could feel my foot again. It bothered me to roll over my big toe when walking barefoot afterwards. I think wearing the precisions instead of the Frees for the next couple of days will help.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Perfect workout on the 160s (which is fine by the way, distance is relatively unimportant).

If you want even a funnier thing on the strides, Joe sometimes has his runners do strides *barefoot* 1x per week on the grass--it's supposed to work the stabalizers and such (absolutely no more than that). I tried it a couple times and it felt kind of silly, but some folks swear by it.

Don't try on anything except a well-mainted football field.