Time to Read: ~4 minThe workout
Early in the day Adam sent his weekly workout information to us. Scott and I aren't doing the Hartshorne Masters' Mile this year so our plan called for a 200 - 200 - 400 ladder at R pace. This didn't sound too bad, so even though I was afraid I knew it would be a fine evening.
Nutrition and warming up
Last week I made the mistake of eating a bowl of Brussels sprouts an hour before heading out. This time I was smarter. I enjoyed some Greek yogurt with pecans at 4 pm. Scott and I had to do an errand before running so we left pretty early, arriving up at Barton before 6:45. We have been arriving early each week and getting in a pre-warm-up before the official after stretching warm-up. This week when I read the workout I noticed a question thread. Someone asked if it started at 7 or if one should arrive early.
When we arrived this time everyone who was already there was standing near the track. As we entered I heard a loud shot. The track team was in full practice mode. They were practicing starts with the gun, sprinting, stretching and lifting. I asked, "Is this one of those times we have to respect the track and wait?" Yup, we all agreed that we had to wait. So we grabbed drinks and took bathroom breaks before hitting the track for a warm-up.
Our group and the ladder
Before the evening began Scott showed me how you can double tap on the Apple watch to record splits. He had learned this during the week and thought it would be helpful. I left Xander's watch home. Last week I had worn both, but every time I pushed on Xander's watch to start a split it would bump against my Apple watch and trigger the SOS call. I had to abort an emergency call several times. I didn't want to risk that again! I was excited about the ability to track the splits and visioned myself yelling out our times as we looped.
The group was small this evening as both Caroline and Tonya weren't there. I was glad I had this new ability to do the split shout out and practiced hitting the watch. Yup this would be perfect. Our group convened and I shared that our R pace was 46 seconds.
Say what??
The first 200 came in at 47 and change. Not bad. Then our 2nd 200 was near 50. We couldn't hold the pace for the 400. Each lap was 52 - 54 range. And, I wasn't really able to hit the watch and look much. So much for my shouting out splits for my group. I was disappointed. I kept wondering why we couldn't hit the times and then I realized - our R pace is actually 53 seconds for a 200.
I let the crew know as soon as I realized. They were very gracious. They all had eyebrows raised when I said 46 but I must have sounded so confident that they just trusted me. Once we started our second set things went better. We hit the paces (I think) and we enjoyed our recoveries. Each time we were recovering with an equal distance with a slow jog.
3 sets or 4?
Most of us decided on 4 sets for the evening and we wanted to stick with that plan. However, at the end of set 3 I looked at the clock Adam had brought. It was 7:56 pm. I knew we'd be expected to be cooling down soon and I noticed that the track was almost empty. I let people know and we agreed to get as much of our last set done as possible. We started our 200 and did our 200 of rest. Then the track was literally empty. People were mostly done cooling down. Elizabeth and I ran a lap and a bit together for a short cool down and then called it quits. The group was stretching and Scott and I had to get home for Elizabeth's dinner night.
Time for curry
Our family has tried something for awhile now - each member gets a dinner night to cook. It worked successfully for a full year and then Elizabeth went to college. We dropped it for Xander's cross country season because things were so crazy, planning to start again in November. Then, November and December were crazy with holidays so we bumped it again. Now, Elizabeth is transferred to Ithaca College and she is living with us. We brought dinner nights back and this night is Elizabeth's night. One of her favorite things to make is any curry. Usually she makes a homemade curry paste, but today she planned to try out the canned curry paste for her base. I was very hungry and consequently excited to get home to enjoy dinner! We've been keeping track of the meals everyone makes in a quick little blog called Dawson Dinners
Did the repeat setting work?
It was a pain and unreliable but maybe it recorded and I just wasn't able to look quickly enough? When I went into the watch and looked I realized I only manage to split things a few times. It wasn't successful at all. I think the speed makes it challenging to properly do the double tap. I may try again next week and I may actually take time to figure out Xander's watch and just wear it on a different wrist than my Apple watch. A couple of our splits were recorded and ended up in the ballpark for what our goals were.
