Will It Go 'Round In Circles? [20 x 400m Repeats]

This morning was one of the fun, but testing, workouts in the Gazelles canon, 20 x 400m repeats. Gilbert usually schedules this one about a month away from some big goal race, to check our ability to run 400's faster than we did several months ago, and to see how you maintain or even increase the pace when you're getting tired. It's a long day of training, but a good one. It was nice and cold this morning, in the high 30's as we started, and virtually everyone was wearing long pants. Gilbert asked us to do the long warmup, so we knocked out a fairly brisk 2.7 miles to Austin High School at about 9:20/mile pace. I ran with my pace tribe, and the warmup felt a little easier than that. It was still dark, of course, but we had really good moonlight, and there weren't many problems finding our footing as a result.

Drills drilled (once again, people are trying to cut the distance short on these, which is amusing), Gilbert grouped us up and gave us the final scoop and paces. These 400's were in groups of 5 x 400m, 1:00 rest between. After each set of 5 x 400m, we'd "trot" a full 400, and then launch into the next set, with each set 2 seconds per 400m faster than the previous set. He wanted 100 situps and 10 pullups after we were finished, as well. My group was Jennifer, Brian, Rich, Charlene, Marcy, Emily, Rachel, and two other women that I just don't know by name yet. It was a big group. Gilbert wanted us to start with 1:42 laps, then 1:40, 1:38 and 1:36 for the last set of 5. Last time I did these was back in November, when I did 15 x 400m with Rich, at an average pace of 1:39.5 per lap.

Our first set was a little erratic, as we tried to find the pace in the dark. We took turns leading the way, and on average, we did okay with our numbers. We ended up just over our 1:42 target average with splits of 1:44, 1:43, 1:41, 1:41, and 1:44. So far, so good. We trotted a 3:05 400m, and went right into the second set.

Again, we took turns leading the way, and came in right at 1:39/lap, just under our 1:40 target average. We were starting to get a little frisky, and we were only halfway done. Most of us grabbed Powerade on this break, and after about 3:30, we were ready for group number 3. Splits for group two were 1:41, 1:40, 1:38, 1:38 and 1:37.

Quite a few of our crew had to leave after the third set of 5 x 400m, so we had some aggressive leaders on a bunch of these laps. I learned to leave just enough distance between me and them so that I came in more or less on pace. It wasn't time to really go for it, yet. Everyone was hanging in there pretty well still, and it was nice when we were done to be able to know that there were only 5 left to run. Another trot lap, and we rolled into the final set, with only about 6 or 7 of us to finish up the workout. The splits for this set were 1:41, 1:37, 1:35, 1:38 and 1:36, just over 1:37 average laps, just under our 1:38 target. Good running!

Strangely, I was feeling pretty good still, albeit a little tired as we started the 16th repeat after the rest lap. Brian and Rich tended to lead most of the final laps, pushing the pace especially hard on the last 3 repeats, and I really didn't have the speed to stay with them, I don't think. My times were just fine, but I was 3 or 4 seconds behind them on some of the last laps. They did great today! The really speedy people were long gone by now, so it was just our lonely pack working around the track as the sun came up. Still, it was a nice last set of repeats, with splits of 1:40, 1:34, 1:36, 1:34 and 1:32 to finish. 1:35 average, just under 1:36 target. Last lap is a personal best for 400m repeats for me, which is very cool at the end of such a long workout. Our overall average lap pace was 1:38.5, one second average faster than last time, with more repeats in the workout. Good one.

Erine was still hanging out, so he joined Brian, Rich, Jennifer and Charlene for the 100 crunches on the track. After that, Brian, Rich and I went over to try pullups, but I could only do one pullup. Pitiful. Rich did all 10, in fine fashion. Brian did some indeterminate number between those two extremes. The three of us did a really easy run back to RunTex, the short way back, covering 1.6 miles at 10:00/mile pace. Even at that pace, we passed Erine on the way, who was taking it really easy after all the repeats.

I hung out and stretched with Jason and Aaron, and then it was time to go. It was a really long day of training, but a good one. I'll probably be pretty tired tomorrow, so the easy recovery run will be easy indeed. I think just one set of leg exercises at the gym as well, and no leg press this time. For the day, 9.77 miles, with 8000m of repeats in there at an average mile pace of 6:36/mile. That's pretty fast, I'd say.