Speed is the Word

So today, I made it official… I’m in speed training. I sucked it up and headed on over to Tom Black Track for my first running session of the year. I wasn’t sure what to expect.

The weather was a little chilly today, clocking in with upper 40s and a decent amount of wind. Enough to make me rethink this whole speed workout for today. But I have to start somewhere, I might not be able tomorrow and since I didn’t run over the weekend, I was well rested. Plus, I needed a benchmark on where I was, fitness wise, to truly plan for the upcoming racing season.

Here’s the shorthand of my workout:

800(WU); 200(H), 200(C); 400(H), 400(C); 400(H), 400(C); 800 (H), 800(C); for a total of 2.5 miles. I am using my own shorthand here: The number is the number of meters (tracks are commonly measured in meters (because the rest of the world is metric) rather than miles), “WU” means warmup pace, “H” means hot and running a speed pace, “C” means cool and running at a recovery pace. The reason that I used my own shorthand is because I had no set paces, so I don’t know if my 200m pace was a race pace, tempo pace or what! After the fact, I have a clearer idea of where I stand… so here is where I stand.

I am most interested in my 800(H) time which translated into a 7:08 pace. Why this is important to me, because it is closer to a race pace being that it’s at the end of the workout and I was fatigued from the number of previous laps. When I looked up the paces, I fell right into the category for a 23:00 minute 5k according to McMillian.

This seems about right… I probably be able to run a 23:30ish 5k given race conditions (as opposed to a track). So here is I how I am going to use this to plan out my spring race season:

Goal: To break my current PRs in the 5k (2002 – 21:56) and 10k (2000 – 48:06)

Speed Training Section1
Race: March 17th Catch the leprauchaun, Goal Time: 23:00
Speed Training Section 2
Race: April 14th Spring Sprint, Goal Time: 22:15
Speed Training Section 3
Race: May 12th Run for the Deaf, Goal Time: 21:30
Race: May 26th Expo 10k, Goal Time: 47:30

So that’s my plan… I’ll need to look up some good track workouts and make sure that I make either Mon or Tues my speed work out (depending on my weekend runs). I think this will give me something to focus on this Spring, then, come summer I can start ramping up for the Quad Cities Marathon in September.

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