Thursday, July 7, 2011

Ladder Workout

Got him out of his shirt in the first five minutes. Easy street!
I got up at 4:20 this morning (surely Jamoosh was ready for lunch by then) to make the drive out to East valley and met Adam for a track workout. We like to meet up a few times per year to run, drink coffee, and look through back issues of GQ sniffing the cologne samples. We met at a middle school track and he basically did his workout while I did mine.



We embraced, played a quick game of pattycake, and set off for some 5K pace work. I had the idea to run 400/800/1200/1600 and then back down again with 400 rest laps in between. Adam talked me out of the 1200s and that was fine with me. I know there are no rules in running, but the suggestion is to run the back side of the ladder a bit faster than the front side. Hmmmmm. Here are the numbers:
400 8:34
800 8:29
1600 9:34
800 8:52
400 7:54



I also wore the HR monitor and was surprised at how low my HR stayed despite the heaving lungs and inability to talk. My overall average was 154 bpm and my average on the run splits was 164 bpm. That's not outrageous for me. Two years ago, when I wore the monitor all the time, I was getting up to about 180 bpm. It was very hot and humid this morning, which may have had the impact of making it feel like a tougher run than it really was --whatever the eff that means! Hmmmmm again.
You can't just 'help yourself' to mommy's weed!




We chatted a bit about discipline. I know that I don't run according to a plan and have trouble adhering to a schedule, and that may be a big opportunity for me. I'd like to start planning pace and distance and sticking to the plan to build improvement. I'm a head case when it comes to running and I really believe the recorded paces tell the tale. That mile was definitely tough, but what was my plan? At the start, Adam asked about 5K times and suggested that I run the splits at about 9:15 based on that. Well you can see what I thought about that! Is that why I ran the mile at a full minute/mile slower? And what about that "I'm almost finished" final 400? I think it's possible that if I trained according to plan, instead of throwing myself around the route willy-nilly, I may see improved overall running. I have today to use as a baseline, and will be able to establish a plan for the next workout, so that is the silver lining.

This was a tough workout. I'm not really sore muscularly, but I know I got some cardio work done and that feels good. We also talked about getting some S. Mountain hill work in on the weekends. I'm down for that!

Post-Swimming lesson Einsteins with daddy!

5 comments:

Adrienne said...

You guys look nice and sweaty even at 4:20 am. And it's only in the 90's---maybe 100's then. I got my workout in by sitting at a swim meet for 3 hours. Amazing you can run in this heat...I'm dying.

Anonymous said...

Damn - no vomit!

Good call by Adam on limiting speed work the first time out.

ShutUpandRun said...

You shouldn't get the blog world all worked up with your sweaty bodies. Such a tease. Did the spooning come after coffee, how come you didn't mention it?

I hate speedwork, but I'm convinced it leads to great improvement if you stick with it. Nice job out there in the AZ sun.

The Boring Runner said...

I still smell like GQ Cologne....and I LOVE IT!

Anonymous said...

Pre-vomit threshold speed work and sweat...good times!
Seriously, nice work!