Multi-Running

I cannot remember the last run I’ve had that was not influenced by weather conditions.  That’s not entirely true.  Monday morning was probably a decent workout out and it was before the white out.  Tuesday was pouring rain.  Thursday was a mess and in the eye of the storm.  Therefore, to say I had some pent up energy is an understatement.  That extra juice was a double-edged sword this morning.

Since this week my entire program was blown up by Old Man Winter, today I had to multi-task to get the ship righted.  More accurately, this morning I engaged in multi-running.  What?  I just made it up.  By this I mean I had to get a bunch of stuff done in one workout.  Kind of makes sense, no?

First, I needed to bang out the intended hill repeats from Thursday night … 4×1 miles at goal 10k pace (7:15).  I was a bit apprehensive because it’s been going on 5 weeks since I attempted any type of speed work by myself.  Goodbye pacers.  *Sigh*  Nonetheless, after a 1.5 mile warm up, I toed the line, set the watch and got to it.  You know what happened before reading the next sentence.  I blasted off … of course not thinking I was blasting off.  In hindsight, it was kind of like shaking a bottle of soda all week, then uncorking … boom.  The first 2 splits:

Dumb.  Dumb.  Dumb.  Maybe not dumb, but poorly executed.  What’s really annoying/disturbing is the max speed.  That’s just silly and completely unsustainable, especially on rolling hills.  I suspected that I would come out hard on the first 800m of the first mile, but this was absolutely counter-productive.  I really tried to run smarter.  As a consequence, I slowed on the back 800m, which is even more counter-productive.  I was whipped after each repeat, but the recovery saved me. The average pace is what I’d like to hit at next Sunday’s 5k.  For purposes of today, I would have loved if that average pace occurred only on the final repeat.

Ticked off, I regrouped and focused on relaxing.  I finally got it right.

Much better.  After these repeats, I felt like I put in some effort but I wasn’t huffing and puffing.  My spirits were not great, but much improved.  Most folks run better with others and I am no different.  I won’t be alone during the race, so that’s a positive.  After almost screwing the pooch, today rang my bell enough to pay attention to the start next weekend.  Hopefully, we’ll have something other than snowicane weather and I can keep to my normal routine and not have bottled up energy heading into Sunday.  If I can managed to stay in the zone of the last 2 repeats for the first 2 miles, then I can drop it for the final mile of the race.  We’ll see how well this strategy gets executed.

Speed was not the entire focus this morning.  I also had to get in some mileage too.  Therefore, I switched gears to an easy pace.  At first it was a minor struggle.  Coach was right when he said the repeats were a big workout.  Frankly, I was tired, but that doesn’t matter.  After a couple of miles, the legs and lungs fell back into harmony.  Of the total 12.5 miles this morning, I finished the final 4 with an easy progression – 9:14, 8:42, 8:31 and 8:27.  Slow, but for tomorrow I am planning a series of mini-tempos within a longish run and did not want to completely deplete reserves.

In all, a good run.  I saw a bunch of folks from the team on LRs, worked off energy and learned a lesson in the process.