Terrible Track

Today's track workout, not so good. The workout was a 2 mile warm up, followed by 6x1 mile repeats with full recovery and a 1 mile cool down. Although the workout didn't say anything, I know Steve wants the times to decrease for each successive mile. I did just the opposite today.

The workout started out well. The two mile warm went fine. At the end, I was ready to do the track portion. In fact, I probably felt too good. I ran the first mile. I thought that I was going slow. However, for my typical pace, I was not. When I finished the first mile, I stopped my watch and checked the time: 7:15. Uh, oh, I knew this was bad. My fastest mile at track this year is 7:33, This was 18 seconds faster than my fastest mile to date, and there were still five more miles to go.

I tried to go a bit easier on the second one. The time was slower than the first one: 7:25. This was still too fast, though. Already, I had done two mile splits faster than any previous mile split this year, and I was only 1/3 done with the workout.

The third mile was tough. Surprisingly, I did it at 7:27, which was almost the same as the second mile. However, I was really beginning to notice the headwind through a portion of each 400. It seemed to be getting stronger but it probably only felt this way because I was getting tired.

My times starting falling apart on mile 4. I seemed to be going much slower, and it was getting more difficult to maintain the pace earlier in the repeat. The watch confirmed what I was experiencing: 7:47. This was going in the wrong direction. Mile 5 was a little better: 7:43. By this point, I felt mentally done. I was just hoping to survive the final lap.

The last lap, I didn't have much left. I felt like I was plodding. And who turned up the wind? Actually, I don't think the wind was any different, it was probably me being tired. Again, the stopwatch confirmed my feeling: 7:53. In short, a total disaster since this lap should have been the fastest and not the slowest. After the last lap, I did the one mile cool down. It felt good to go slow.

As I was doing the cool down, I wondered if I had fought hard enough on that last mile. When I got home, however, I was somewhat surprised by the data from my heart rate monitor. At the end of the first lap, my heart rate was 185. At the end of the sixth lap, my heart rate was 192. So, maybe I was trying hard but I just don't have the stamina to do six of these repeats yet. Also, I made a huge mistake by going too fast in the beginning that I paid for at the end. I need to work on starting off easier when I am running alone. This seems to be less of this problem when I am running at track with others. Well, hopefully I will learn from this experience and do better next time.