Today’s track workout #1

I was hoping I’d have time to look up a few things online to make a multi-week plan but that didn’t happen in time for this morning’s run. So when Todd asked what kind of pain we were planning for the day, I didn’t have much of an answer. I seem to remember a workout a couple years ago starting with 400’s at a 10k pace, then speeding up to a 5K pace, then going all out. So six 400’s, that would be a good place to start, keep it reasonable, no injuries.

We jog for 4 or 5 laps to warm up. It’s 38 degrees out after all. Then we run our first 400, shooting for our 10K pace. My time is… 1:36 or a 6:24 pace. Yeah, that’s way faster than my 5K pace. It wasn’t all out and we weren’t dying so we decide to roll with it. 2nd 400 in 1:33, 3rd 400 in 1:34. It seems that I can hold this pace well with 400 recovery jogs in between. We decide to do the next 2 all out. 4th 400 in 1:26 or 5:44 pace. 5th in 1:29. 6th we back off to our original pace and I’m right back to 1:35.
Then we jog our cool down. Total run time about 47 minutes. This is when I realized that my arms and hands were freezing. Moving my thumbs actually sent shocks of pain through my forearms. Very strange. I’ll make sure I have my gloves with me next time.

I honestly had no clue how fast I’d run 400’s in the past. I think in 2009 there were a few random track workouts. It was the fall of 2008 that we actually had a group that ran track workouts for a few months. So I went back in the blog archives and found that by the 6th track workout I had my 400 time down to 1:20 or 5:20 pace.
Knowing that makes me hopeful that I might be able to add some speed in what feels like a very short time before Columbia (38 days) and Mooseman. (51 days) I doubt I'll do a track workout the week of Columbia so if all works out I've got 4 more track sessions. I also have 2 races planned. The 4 miler in Central Park this Sunday and a 10K in Central Park on May 15th, the weekend before Columbia.

I was hoping to swim tonight but NJ Transit stopped that from happening. Switch problems had me sitting on a train for an hour before leaving NYC. Then when I transferred to my other train in Newark there was a medical emergency. I think it was a 2.5 hour trip home tonight. Blah.