Now that I have laid a solid base of running in this first almost month of marathon training, it was time to begin incorporating some speedwork into my routines. I have been feeling kind of sluggish lately, though I've still been hitting my paces. I was hoping this workout would shake things up and remind me that I can still run fast. On the plan was a short but sweet 4 x 800 set. There is a general rule of running each 800 in a time that is the equivilent to the goal time of your marathon. I took off on the first one at a comfortable fast pace that I felt I could do for all 4. After I ran the first 800 in 2:59, I realized that I was probably going to run these 800s in a faster pace than my goal time in the marathon. I am definately NOT going to run 2:59 in the marathon, though I wouldn't be sad if I did ;) Thoughts of the workout took me back to the days of high school. Only, in high school I ran these much faster. My splits were:
1) 2:59
2) 3:08
3) 3:02
4)2:59
I tried to keep them somewhat consistent, but took the middle two a little easier because my gut said to hold back a little to see how my body felt at the half way point. Turns out, I felt fine and ran the last one as hard as the first. I still could have pushed much harder, but didn't want to blow my legs out too much, since I have my 14 miler coming up on Saturday. I'm sure I'll be plenty sore from this workout, since I haven't run this fast in a while. In all, I think the workout was a nice way of waking my system up. I'll be rotating between these and increasing number of 800 and hill repeats every other week to build some extra speed and power. I hope it translates into feeling much better on my future runs.
1 comment:
Those are very nice splits. I think you're well on your way towards a BQ time...
Post a Comment