Time to Read: ~4 minAs with every week, Adam sent out an email with the workout early in the day. Scott gets these in his inbox and forwards them to me and I don't open it until I feel strong and ready to face what the evening will bring. I've grown to like this part of the program. I always know it will be a challenge, but I don't know until that day what that challenge will be. It is fun not to have to make up your own plan sometimes!!
This week's plan called for 2 to 3 sets. Each set was:
1000 at tempo pace followed by a 1 minute rest, another 1000 at tempo pace and another 1 minute rest and then four 200s at repeat pace with a 200 jog in between. Some quick math and I realized even 2 sets would be a long workout for our 7 minute mile crew!!
I went into the pacing calculator and our 1000 pace was about 1 minute per lap and I already knew our repeat pace was about 52. I actually wrote the whole thing up on paper, calculating out how many minutes the workout would last and started to get my head around things.
Scott and the kids and I are doing this new thing where we try to eat dinner earlier. Because of activities our dinners have been pushed so late that it is now 7:30-8pm that we're eating most nights. This is fine except we all go to bed by 9 and sometimes even 8:30. It isn't that great to eat and go straight to sleep. This is all good but on MITHACAL miles night it is hard to eat early and not throw up during the training AND we had plans to go to Viva with Tonya and Adam for dinner. Another quick calculation that we'd be eating at 9ish went through my head. Ok ... I can do this I thought and had a salad and something else that I can't even remember now as a snack before the training.
The first set
We arrived with plenty of time to spare again which always makes a night start out better. Our friend Lesley was there so it was fun to catch up with her. The group was on the small side for the evening and I was a little worried about doing the workout without some of our regulars. Again I found myself amazed at how quickly I could come to depend on people to keep things nice and even for us. John and Dave and Bob were all "absent" and I missed them. We had a nice crew though so it was all good.
Tonya and I enjoyed our 10 minute warm-up and we all gathered at the start line. Without much chit chat we found ourselves beginning our first 1000. I found this enjoyable actually. Every lap Tonya would shout out our pace. I had my watch to check as well but I liked that she was shouting it out. On other evenings we'd both be shouting it out, but the group was small enough it felt like overkill to have 2 people reminding everyone of our pace. Plus, really 1 minute paces are awfully easy not to mess up!!
We rested our one minute and then it was time for the 2nd 1000.
The 200s felt comfortable and familiar and I enjoyed the jog. I have also come to love the jog - there's that "I can't talk - I'm working all out" portion of the workout and then there's the wonderful time to catch up and jog at a snail's pace between reps.
And the 2nd
Adam warned us that the 2nd set would feel more challenging and of course he was correct!! However, it felt doable and that first 1000 at tempo pace felt even enjoyable after the fast 200s. Our friend Kim had done one track workout already that day and she managed to do the entire first set and the 1000s of the 2nd set before bailing for the 200s. I was so amazed/impressed that she was able to do TWO track workouts in one day - wow!!
Our last 200s felt like they'd never end. We picked up another person for this and she did every other one with us. I chatted with her toward the end of the evening and she said she felt up for every other one as she was struggling with some shin issues and speed was rather new for her. That's another thing I love about this evening - you can pop in and out and it is all ok. You can improve on your own timeline which is a nice thing!
Tonya's watch can pick up our activity inside and Strava has a new feature that allows you to tag a friend so you can more easily take someone's workout that you did with them. She shared it with me.
I think that's super cool - love seeing all the little orange circles around the track!
It's a wrap
There was no time for cool down with this and truthfully I felt no desire either! This is one thing about being in the 7 minute mile group when you have the 5:30 and the 6 and 6:30 crews all out there. You are the slowest so you take the longest.
We did our cool down stretches and soon we were at VIVA for a much anticipated dinner with Tonya and Adam. We enjoyed our food and conversation to end our Tuesday night workout.