Tuesday Track Workout

Tuesday Maggots Track Workout w/ Asheville Track Club

The Workout:
2 x 1000 w/ 400 jogs
4 x 400 w/ 200 jogs
2 x 1000 w/ 400 jogs

Brandon and I were running late getting back from the MSDN event in Greenville so I parked up at the UNCA track around 6:45pm. I brought my Inov8 Roc-Lite shoes but somehow forgot my socks at home. The Roc-Lites aren't the best thing to run on pavement with but I wanted to get my feet well accustomed to them before Shut-In.

The Maggots should have just been finishing their warm up from Norm's store, Jus' Running. None of them were there so I assumed they already took off for the evening's hill workout somewhere around campus.

I saw a couple of people I know doing the Team in Training workout so I decided to just stick around and do a track workout instead of hunting for the Maggots.

3/4 of the way into my mile warmup, the Maggots showed after all. I rolled through my last lap, finishing with an average 7:00 min/mile pace.

Norm advised to run faster than 5k pace. I haven't run a 5k since high school so I estimated that meant around a 6 minute/mile pace. Luckily, Chris was there and pulled me through the first 2/3rds of the workout at a pretty good clip.

1st 1000 - 3:22 (5:25 min/mile)
2nd 1000 - 3:22 (5:25 min/mile)
1st 400 in - 81 seconds (5:28 min/mile)
2nd 400 - 79 seconds (5:16 min/mile)
3rd 400 - 77 seconds (5:08 min/mile)
4th 400 - 76 seconds (5:04 min/mile)
3rd 1000 - 3:27 (5:31 min/mile)
4th 1000 - 3:36 (5:46 min/mile)

The no socks thing caught up to me right away and I started to form blisters in a few places. By the middle of the 400 items, the writing was on the wall and I knew I was either going to have to stop or just accept the fact that I would bleed in my shoe. Things were much worse for the little toes on my right foot and I attribute that to the constant left turn provided by the track. After the 400s, I stopped and quickly checked my right foot and shoe for debris and retied it really tight. I hauled it across the field to catch Chris in time to start the final 1000s. After the first 400, Chris lost the wind in his sail and we slowed down quite a bit. I realized what happened and passed him, pulling us the rest of the way. To his credit, he rallied and sprinted to catch up to me in the final 100. I know I could have run that last item faster because I still felt pretty good during the 400 recovery. I just sort of pansied out of it for some reason but didn't linger long on that thought because it felt soooo good to get my shoes off and jog around on the soccer field.

All in all it was a good workout and I'm surprised to say that it felt good to get back on the track to regain some foot speed. The last 6 weeks have been hill workouts that make you strong but not necessarily fast.