Yasso 800's

Thursday, I was able to rejoin the Gazelles for the Yasso 8-10 x 800m workout. We were to run our 800m repeats at a pace that follows the Yasso theory, so that my 3:40 marathon goal time (3:40-3:45, but who's counting for this purpose), equated to a 3:40 average 800m repeat. That pace would be a lot easier than we usually run 800's, but still snappy.

There were lots of Gazelles in attendance this morning, probably around 30. Weather was drizzly and cool enough (55 degrees), but not the most fun conditions we've had. I trailed the pack on the warmup, running along with Leslie, Alex, Renee and Rachel, among others. We had fun, even though we got to the AHS track after the faster Gazelles (i.e. everyone else) had started the drills. We fell right in with them, though, and only skipped the first drill. No biggie. Rogue was there with a good number of folks, so we all had to cooperate to make the track work for all of us.

Gilbert started calling out pace ranges and letting the groups assemble, sending them out as they were called. When he finally got to "3:30," no one stood in, so he was a little frustrated with us until I told him we were thinking about shooting for 3:35-3:40. He went along with that, and we ended up with 7 people in our group. The coolest thing about today's workout was that I didn't have to lead a single lap! Renee and Leslie, along with help from Rachel, drove the pace bus today, and they did a good job with it. We were just cruising along, finishing up lap 7, when Gilbert told us that 8 would be plenty. So, we picked it up a bit on the eighth repeat, but it felt easy. We wobbled a little on pace, but on balance, the group did a good job of staying within our stated range.

I felt a slight tweak in my hip flexor/groin area at first, which worried me, but it went away, so I'll ascribe it to "Taper Madness." :-)

The laps: 3:41, 3:37, 3:39, 3:36, 3:39, 3:39, 3:36, and a "run how you feel" last lap of 3:27. Average was 3:37/800m, or 7:16/mile. For a last tuneup workout, I'm pleased with it.

The cooldown run was with most of the same folks, and we had fun conversations on the way back. I was pretty quiet on the warmup...hard to believe, I know! :-) I stuck around for stretching with Liliana afterwards, and we felt the cold front come in as we stretched.

Now, one last longish run on Saturday, a little 2 x 2000m MGP type run on Monday, a bunch of off days, and a fartlek workout, and it's time to run that 26 miles, 385 yards next Sunday. Where did all the time go? It seems like it was just last week that we had a couple of months to go!

For the day, 7.9 miles.