800's Tonight

Ran 2.5 miles for a warmup since it was chilly.  1.5 was on my own and then 1 mile with the group.  Did some stretching and skipped the usual striders while I took my time taking off my warmup shirt and pants.

The workout was supposed to be 4 sets of 2x800 @ 5k pace and slightly faster with 200 recovery between reps and 3 minutes rest between sets.  I decided not to kill myself by trying to run everyone else's 5k speed.  I didn't have a stop watch on me, so I don't know how fast I was running.  I just kept reminding myself that I am running a 5k and pushing it.  With each half mile rep, I lost ground on the pack.  By the time I started my 3rd set, I was only 100 meters from getting lapped by the leaders.  Coach Nathan was running with us tonight.  When he passed me on my jog between 800's, he told me to stop at 3 sets.

Fine by me.  My lungs were starting to seize up from the air.  Not cold by many standards, but it was cold for my Floridian blood.  It ended up taking about an hour and a half before my breathing came back to normal.

The entire workout, I tried to lift my left leg to get a little more drive and pushed off a little more to get better extension.  My main goal was to stop that hamstring from hurting and it worked fairly well.  It's hard to run when you are either in pain or if you are trying to tweak your form.  I hope this works out and in the future, I can have smoother form and then I can concentrate more on my pace.  I have to do something, though.  Otherwise, my left hamstring is tight and sore for 2 days after each workout.

I finished off my workout with 4 more laps around the track.

Total mileage:  7 miles