It’s been a couple of days since I last posted. Nothing wrong. Just tied up and the running schedule was interrupted. A bit of catch up is in order:
Tuesday we had team intervals on the track. All day I was unable to check the elements as I was locked up in a mid-town conference for work. I knew the forecast called for steady rain so I packed my gear accordingly … full-length tights, long-sleeved tech shirt, running cap and even brought a dry set of clothes for the subway ride home. There is nothing worse than being cold and wet and stuck on an air conditioned subway. After the conference, I emerged dressed and ready to hop on the subway to the track. I felt the rain, wind and cold and figured it would be a painful workout, but headed downtown anyway. Upon my arrival near NYU, it was like a monsoon. Hard rain with even harder wind. I still had a 1.5 mile jog to the track ahead of me. After 30 seconds of being punched in the face with really horrible weather, I bagged it. There was absolutely no good that could come from running in weather like that. I had a flash of a teammate who broke her ankle in the winter on black ice. Living to fight another day, I went home. Later that evening I learned 10 certifiably insane hardcore teammates attended the Tuesday session. Apparently the track was flooded. Therefore, they ran a few fartleks on flat land. Other than team bonding (which is really key), I didn’t miss anything.
With Tuesday a wash, I mentally prepped for an evening run on Wednesday. My first inclination would be to pop up early Wednesday morning, but I attended a school event with the family. Sooooo, I had to wait until Wednesday night to bang out a run. Since it was on my mind and I had not done a fartlek since winter, I figured there was no time like the present. You might be wondering why I didn’t make up the bagged interval session. I don’t think 24 hours is enough recovery from hard intervals to an even harder 5-mile tempo session scheduled for Thursday night. Therefore, light fartleks won the day. [BTW – I’m starting to think Marathon Maiden and I are on the same cosmic running plan. I read her blog after I returned from my workout last night and what did she do and blog about? Fartleks. Amazing.] I had a plan for the fartleks, but decided to run by feel to the extent that I felt better or worse in the middle of the run. The results:
Warm up: 2.5 miles
4 min. fartlek @ 10k pace = 7:04
2 min. jog @ 9:21 pace
3 min fartlek @ 5k pace = 6:42
4 min jog @ 9:41 pace
5 min fartlek @ 10k pace = 7:00
Cool down: 1.2 miles
Total = 6.01 @ 8:18 pace
I was tempted to throw another 5k interval in there, but decided I accomplished my goal … get heart rate up, get some turnover, get energized, but keep it in check. The “5k pace” was really run at 4 mile pace because I was hesitant to push it given tonight’s tempo session. I’m glad I maintained (slightly quickened) the pace on the 10k portions while adding another minute. The challenge with fartleks is to stay disciplined and not get too quick. Ultimate success is tough to determine and is certainly not immediately apparent, but I had some positive signs that it was a good session: I really felt energized at the end, but slept very well. Hard night sessions usually result in a few sleepless hours in the middle of the night. Not the case last night.