Workouts are a funny thing. You can do the same one a thousand times with completely different results each time, or hit the same times and feel completely different.
A few weeks ago, we ran 8x200 w/ 60s recovery ON THE DOT @ 800m goal pace. I threw on my Victories - the fastest spike in the business. It was a beautiful day. 70 degrees, 0 wind. Sunshine. Just a great day to run.
I took the first one hard. It felt horrible, and I ran the rest of the workout head spinning, barely managing 30's for all of them, completely out of breath. I threw up and collapsed over the bushes on the outskirts of the track. This was a Monday. I was sore and tired for 3 days after that.
About 6 days later I ran 1:57.9 going 59.1-58.8 well off the back of a pack I should easily be able to keep with (PR of 1:56). My legs felt cold, I wasn't confident in my speed, and I went out way too slow. Seriously I don't think I've been through the first quarter that slow since Sophomore year of HS.
But I digress. Today, we did 10x200 w/ 60s rest ON THE DOT @ 800m goal pace. It was 50 degrees, overcast, with a VERY demonic headwind on the backstretch that just followed you around the turn, clinging to your body like a screaming adolescent. We had a morning run that I took too quickly, and my legs were.....not tired, but I could definitely feel the ~5miles @ just over 6min pace I had run about 5 hours earlier. This is a Wednesday.
I threw on my Lunas (lightweight flats), and drafted the first one. Too slow by about half a second. Damn. On each consecutive rep, I was supposed to be hitting 29.0. I Starting at 29.4, and every rep got faster and faster. As I got more and more tired due to the quick turnover and lack of rest, I simply leaned forward, took it out, and pumped my arms. After the 9th one BARELY over 28, the wind gusted hard and my teammates groaned. This was going to be a doozy of a last rep.
This is where I made a decision to just pour whatever I had left into this rep. I put my head down and sprinted off the line as the last rep got going, and ran JUST over 27 flat. We did wind sprints and weight afterwards, and cooled down twice, after running and after weights.
My legs feel great.
I have a race on Saturday.
I have a plan.
I have confidence in my speed.
I'll let you know how it goes.
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Just checked this blog out for the first time- I like it. I was more of a Steeple/5k kind of guy in DIII, but the feeling you described is very familiar. I vividly recall doing mile repeats on a day that should have been nice and just grinding, struggling, feeling awful, and the a week later, running 2ks and feeling fresh as a daisy. As time went on, I started to correlate how I felt in workouts to how I felt on my easy days. Taking those easy days super easy seemed to make the workouts much more consistent.
ReplyDeleteGood luck this season.