Yesterday I hit the circular-running-thingy at Graham Middle School in Mountain View with a few NB Excelsior teammates and guys from Lockheed Martin. They'd just returned from the Penn Relays and have been training at the track all winter....which is exactly why I wanted to be there......to get a good kick in the ass. The plan was for 4 sets of 200, 200, 400 with 2 minutes of rest after each run and 4 minutes between sets. The fly-boys were running 29 second 200's and 60 second 400's so picked a slower pace that I could (hopefully) sustain for all 4 sets. The long rest was helpful and I managed 200's at 32 and 400's at 65.......at least until the last 400 when the wheels came off the bus. All that training on Tuesday totaled almost 4 hours - a lot of volume considering neither workout was at an easy pace.
I also didn't take it easy on Monday running 11 miles at negative splits ending with a 5:40 mile. This is a type of distance workout I've been trying to do once or twice a week to develop sustained speed in longer races. It's something I read that former world marathon record holder Kalhid Khannouchi did in his training. He'd supposedly run 20+ miles then hit the track for a couple really fast finishing miles. Will it work for me? TBD.
Prior to Monday - a day called "Sunday" - I ran an easy 8 miles on the trail but it was pretty hilly. So that was 3 days of hard on the legs workouts and today I felt more tired than I have in a long time.
It's on days like today when I really appreciate the Bay Trail near Moffett Field with it's long stretches of smooth gravel, no road crossings and few other runners and cyclists. It's the perfect course for setting the legs on auto-pilot and running with an un-interrupted gait for miles and miles. Surprisingly I didn't run as slow as I felt; finishing 9 miles in just barely under 8 minute pace. No second workout planned today unless you count this:
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