Sunday 5/18 - Speed Workout

The workout was 30 x 200 meters with 100 meter jogging rest at the Charlestown Track. After my run yesterday, I was really hoping to avoid people at the track. Especially since this track can get extremely crowded even though no one runs or walks on it. The plan was to wake up early and get the workout done before anyone else got there. No dice. I didn't end up heading over to the track until noon, so any people that I had to deal with on the track would be my own fault. There was a kids' lacrosse game going on, and per usual, there were parents scattered along the straightaways in various lanes and younger siblings practicing their lacrosse skills on the turns or riding scooters and bikes in a general serpentine pattern on the track. It really didn't get to me that much today though. I should have learned my lesson two weeks ago, and I knew it was my fault which made it a bit easier to deal with. As a result however, my 200s may have been slightly long or short depending on where I started. For each repeat, I tried to pick a lane that I would be able to run in for a full 200 meters, but it didn't always work out as I had to cut inside or outside to avoid kids.

I had done the same workout last year, but I didn't look at my notes on it until after I was done with the workout today. As it turns out, I did this workout on the exact same weekend last year, and my notes are surprisingly similar. I started with a 2.5 mile warm up at 5:55, did a few knee highs and butt kicks, and got right into the workout. The goal pace was 34 seconds per 200 which I accomplished with an average of 34 low. The actual splits were:

31,34,33,34,35,34,32,34,33,35,34,34,34,34,34,34,34,34,34,35,34,34,34,34,35,34,34,34,34,29.

I obviously had an issue with finding the pace for the first 10 repeats but eventually evened out. The 100 meter jogging rest slowly turned from 6 minute pace to 7ish, but overall, the workout didn't feel that difficult. I probably should have attempted to throw in a few more 33s after the first 20 repeats considering that my legs don't feel sore at all the day after the workout. The fact that this workout has such close results to last year's gives me hope though. Perhaps my speed isn't too far off from where it was last year. I just need to work on sustainable speed.

The 2.5 mile cooldown back to my apartment was at ancient marathoner pace. By far the slowest miles I've run in the last year. However, I think this was more a matter of getting stuck in that pace from the 100 meter jogging rest rather than actually being tired. 10.5 miles on the day.