Finally - a Good Workout

Sorry I missed my post on Monday. I guess I took "rest day" to heart. In fact, I was in bed asleep by 7:30 Monday night. Yes - you read that right. It has been years since I got 10 hours of sleep in a single night. It was very nice. It sucks getting old. Oh wait - we're supposed to need less sleep the older we get? I did get some time to read and comment on a bunch of blogs that had been backing up in my queue, so not all was lost.

All good things must come to an end though, and I did get out for last night's training session. I say "training session" instead of run because that is what it was. I hit the Corona del Mar High School track for a three and a half mile warm up, 6 X 800 yard intervals with 400 yard rest step, and a 1 mile warm down for a total of nine miles. That's like 36 laps. I used the Magic Shoe 5K course to get in most of the warm up in before running in circles. So I think I ended up running only 22 laps around the track.

It wasn't long before I started to worry about this workout. I was well rested, but had trouble getting to a good aerobic heart rate without sucking wind during the warm up. Once I was on the track though, everything started clicking. The goal was to run each 800 at 10K pace, somewhere between 8:30 and 9:00. I ran by feel for the most part, just checking with the Garmin to make sure it said "10K" on the goal screen. I actually had to slow down a couple of times. In the end I ran the most consistent set of intervals I ever have:

Interval 1: 4:15
Interval 2: 4:16
Interval 3: 4:14
Interval 4: 4:15
Interval 5: 4:17
Interval 6: 4:24 (obviously tiring here)

Two things struck me about this session: (1) The runs were for the most part effortless. After checking my heart rate data this is evident - I barely made it into LT zone (greater than 88% max heart rate); and (2) All of these times are at the lower end of my current 10K range. Maybe all those aerobic miles are starting to pay off.

Now I get to really rest. No more running until Saturday (well, maybe Friday morning I'll try to sneak in a quick 6 miler). I'll be climbing on a plane later this morning for a whirlwind trip to El Paso TX. The only running I'll be doing is from air conditioned building to air conditioned building. Weather forecast for today? 106 and thunderstorms. I have post for either tomorrow or day after regarding lactate training, so stay tuned!