Solo Speedwork (2000m Repeats)

Yesterday was a rest day, sort of unscheduled, but it just worked out that way. No problem, really. Today, I wanted to simulate the 4x2000m workout that Gilbert had assigned the Wednesday group to do yesterday morning. The Thursday group was doing a tempo race, and I just didn't feel like I needed that so soon after the half marathon. So, I was on my own to figure out how to build the 4x2000m workout here in the 'Hood.

The weather was nice, with the temps this evening in the low 50's, crisp and clear. It was good running weather. To do the workout without a measured course, I dove deep into the feature set of the Garmin, and programmed a 4x2000m workout using the software on the computer, and then uploaded my homemade workout to the watch. It worked like a charm. The geeky stuff went like this: First, 20:00 of easy running. I didn't do drills on my own, but hey, a man can only do so much. At that point, the watch took me through a 2:00 rest (I walked those intervals) and then 1.24 miles of running. Pretty cool stuff, really. These intervals were very slightly longer than the Zilker course (that's 1.2 miles), but at least they were more or less consistent with each other in the 'Hood. After that, the watch embarked me on 15 minutes of easy running time. If you have a Garmin, you really ought to check out the Workout features.

Anyway, the 20 minutes of easy running felt great. Nice and comfortable, and I was warm and ready to run hard when that was done. 2:00 of walking, and it was time to launch into the faster stuff. Now, running in the dark, I just had to guess how hard to run, since I had no one to chase or to be chased by, and all the pace work would have to be done by myself. Boo hoo. I was using a particular loop in the 'Hood, and all the intervals came out almost exactly the same. Pretty cool. I tried to talk myself out of doing that fourth interval while I was slogging through number three, but I persevered, and completed the prescribed 4x2000m after all. The cooldown was slightly abbreviated, at around 12 minutes, but I think that's okay. I got my HR back down to a reasonable number during that post-speedwork jogging, so score that as a victory.

How did it go, you ask? My 4x2000m were 8:44, 8:30, 8:23, and 8:33 on a course that's pretty similar to the Zilker course. My pace average for the 4 repeats was 6:53/mile, which was a huge PR for this workout. It's not precisely apples to apples, but it was some 7 seconds/mile faster than last time, when we only did 3 repeats at Zilker. It was a good workout.

Speedwork is really difficult to do by yourself. At least it is for me. So, I'm pretty stoked about getting the hard work done as a solo artist.

I got some stretching in once I got inside the house, and everything seems to check out A-OK. For the night, 8.9 miles of running. Friday is a day off, but I might get to the gym for some recovery type stuff. Saturday is an 18-19 miler, so that will be a challenge. At least the weather promises to stay perfect for us!