Intervals are our friends

There are track workouts and then there are track workouts! I love the days that everything works right and wish that those are the only type of runs that I have. The reality is that they aren’t, which makes the good days even more awesome. Plus the cushy track was so much kinder to my sore calves, ankle and Achilles than the pavement running I’ve been doing for training.

Today we did intervals of 100s, 200s, and 400s. We did a run interval (running faster than our usual pace, but not all out sprint) and then a walk or jog interval. We did 2 laps of 100s, 2 laps of 200s, 1 running 400, 1 walking/jogging 400, 2 laps of 200s, and 2 laps of 100s. I was almost at 3 miles at the end so I did another 400 to finish up. I started behind everyone else (thank you GPS), so I did a 300 to start and then a walking 100. I love my running paces, and was feeling good enought (itchy feet) to jog some of the rest intervals. I also love that my legs weren’t trashed at the end and I still had “gas in the tank.”

So this is what I spent 37 minutes doing (see picture below) – 11 times around the track. Makes you dizzy, huh? 🙂

I can definitely tell that I’m getting stronger and my endurance/lung capacity is improving as a 12 mpm pace is easy for me now (actually anything slower hurts my calves), and my 800s have been sub-12:00 or close to it pretty consistently. I am hoping that the next intervals we do are 1200s. It’ll be after the Cherry Blossom 10 miler so I may have to chill a bit. We’ll see. 🙂

Coach Becca has me eating more food/taking in more calories, so I have more fuel to use. I’m also trying to make hydration a priority (still working on that). Who would think that eating a minimum of 1500 calories per day could be so hard?!? Smoothies in the morning and adding boiled eggs to salads are helping, but it seems that all I do is eat. LOL

Anyway, the icing on the cake for today’s workout is that this was I think the fastest continuous 3 miles I’ve run to date and I know I could have run it even faster. I’m feeling a PR for the CUCB 10-miler on April 1 (G-d willing), but really anything under a 14 minute pace is a PR for that race. Last year, I had never run more than 7 miles continuously and I was having ITB and hydration issues!

Stats for the track workout are below. I had to post them because I’m still stoked seeing it in writing. 🙂