Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Group Speed Workout

We ran an easy warmup, which is just over a mile.  Some striders and then stretches.  Then, we keep asking Coach Nathan what we are going to do today.  He gives some outrageous workout plans and then tells us 12 x 440's at mile pace with 1:15 recovery rests.  We broke it down into 3 sets of 4 reps.

Sounds like a great workout for 5k practice.  During my own speed workouts, I was running 4 reps, so this should be pretty hard.  I had to keep my speed in check and not dart off too hard like last week.

My mile time was 6:07, so I figure my splits should be around 1:32.  I did good.  I ran all my splits between 1:27 and 1:33 except for the last one, which I ran in 1:39.  I had a hard time breathing on the back stretch as I got a cramp in my middle abdomen.  I think it was my diaphragm and it made breathing slightly unbearable.

We actually only ran 11 reps total.  Coach noticed that too many of us were hunched over and sucking wind during the 2nd set and he cut it short by 1.  We ended up doing sets of 4, 3, and 4.

It was a good workout and I kept myself from trying to compete with the lead pack.  I stayed either at the tail end of the middle group or at the front of the rear group for all the reps except that dreaded last one.

Finished up with a slow 1 mile cooldown.

4 comments:

Andrew Opala said...

WOW. Have to file that one for when I get better at running. WOW.

The Green Girl said...

Wow, that's an intense workout. Good job not burning yourself out straight away.

If I want to PR at a 5k, I think I need to focus more on my speedwork.

Kruns2 said...

11 reps!!! IMPRESSIVE!!! Makes me want to up my 400 repeats. I usually only do 6 so you've got me motivated. Nice job! So if my mile is 6:40 what do you think I should shoot for my 1/4 milers?

Doug said...

Kiesha, since you are primarily running 5k's like me, you want to run those at mile pace. For you right now, that is 1:40 per 1/4. You have to give yourself a couple seconds high and low, because we are human after all. Aim for 1:37 to 1:43. The easiest way to keep pace is time your 200 meter splits. You would want those to be 48 to 52 seconds. You'll know if you have to speed up or slow down a little. If you try to run the entire 1/4 mile on feel, more times than not, you will go out too fast on your early repeats.