a couple of good workouts

Wednesday

After a day off on Monday and a moderate Tuesday, I was ready to do a workout on Wednesday and felt a little more spring in my step, so I decided to try some faster running again. I tried a workout from Matt Fitzgerald's Brain Training book. The workout is 2@HM, 1@10K, 1k@5k, 800m@3k with 400m rest. (I also did 2 miles wup + 2 miles cdn) The workout is basically in between the 4M@HM + 2M@10k and the 10k->1500m pace ladder interval from Hudson's book.

I didn't have much of a plan on pace. The math was easy for 6:56 pace (52 per 200), so I shot for that. It was dark for the first mile and I couldn't see my watch well, but hit 7:04. The next 1600 was 6:56. After that, I just tried to take a couple of second off per 200 for each subsequent interval and they were 6:36, 3:56 (6:19), and 3:03 (6:08).

As it turns out, the paces were pretty damn close to what McMillan would predict from my 68:49 10M race in the spring. McMillan says 6:05, 6:22, 6:36, and 6:59 for 3k, 5k, 10k, and HM. I ran 6:08, 6:19, 6:38, and 7:02 per mile.

Thursday

I did a very easy 5 and some really short drills. Like 3 x 10-15 seconds of skipping, high knees, butt kicks, and strides. It's amazing how awkward skipping was the first time and how natural it was on the third set.

Friday

I figured Fitzgerald worked so well on Wednesday, I stole his HM pace cruise intervals. He actually builds up to 2 x 4.5 w/800m by this point in his schedule, but I settled on 2 x 3 miles -- sounded plenty hard. I shot for <= 7:00 per mile. After a 2+-mile wup, the first 3 miles went 7:00/157, 6:53/164, 6:53/165. This was very easy. My marathon heart rate average 172. Knowing that 6:52 is 3-hour pace, I had the notion that someday I might actually run sub-3 (not this time!). The next three were pretty routine also, although the heart rate continued to climb: 6:54/163, 6:56/167, 6:56/169. Another 2+ miles for 10.7 total and 7:56/149 bpm pace overall.

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I'm really interested in seeing how my long run goes on Sunday. I'm thinking of throwing some goal MP in there to see how it feels. To get an accurate reading maybe I'll run on the Mt Vernon bike path. There are a few permanent markers (4k and 10.5k) from races they hold there. I could do 10.5k out, 10.5k back easy, then 4k out and 4k back at MP.

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I need to stop eating! I'm 2 pounds up from my low a week or two ago. If I weren't running well, it would upset me a lot more. I'm considering weight training to help me keep the pounds off. I can't run any more than I do and counting calories is too damn hard.