It was relatively slim pickins for one of our regular Tuesday workouts. I’m not sure if everyone is getting smart and scheduling meetings on the Tuesday Noon-hours or I shouldn’t post the workout ahead of time. Actually, there were eight of us (and yes, we were all on time). By 12:05 we were discussing the details of the day’s workout. The plan was a mile, a half, and a mile. The goal was to mentally break the workout into five half miles and run them progressively faster. This ultimately does two things: it breaks the workout up so the daunting task of a mile for time is gone, and it forces you to continually think while you’re running hard. Targets were briefly discussed and soon we were off. My target was to run 3:00 for the first half and obviously descend from there. Like clockwork, Richard took us out at 3:01 (Bill was a little bit ahead) and we continued on the second half of the mile. The overall goal was to descend the halves by 5 seconds. It doesn’t seem like much, but it is a noticeable difference is pace. We picked up the pace ever so slightly and finished our mile in 5:54 (that’s a 2:53 for anyone counting). We all regrouped after the mile and jogged a lap for recovery. Next was the half. We started out a little fast at the 200 (40.5 seconds) and quickly made an adjustment. We finished perfectly in 2:50. Regroup, jog a lap. Everyone knew what they had to run. Bill led the way for us the whole last mile. We had to run a 2:45 followed by a 2:40 and Bill led the entire mile and hit the splits (and dodged gym students the entire way). We ran a 5:25 on the nose. I still can’t believe he did it. It was a great workout.
Next week… Dare I ask?
