Intervals at the Metrodome

- Sun, the 20th: 5 mile tempo run on a treadmill. We’d just got some snow, so trying to run real hard on that stuff didn’t sound like a good idea. So I packed up and headed to the Y. It was HARDER than it should have been - I think those “14 days of nothing” really took more out of me than I thought. I started with an incline of 1.0, but then knocked it down to 0 at mile 3 because of a sore left knee. I started at 8.5 mph, up to 9 mph at 2.5 miles (working harder than I should have been at the half-way point), up to 9.5 mph at 3.5 miles, and up to 10.0 mph for the last .5 mile. Here were my mile splits: 7:11, 7:02, 6:52, 6:29, 6:08. In total, it took me 33:44 for the 5 mile run, which was 6:45 / mile. Had REALLY hoped to be faster. I’ve got some work to do....

- Mon, the 21st: CrossFit-sort of exercise in my garage. Yeah, I’m now “that guy” exercising in cut-off jean shorts listening to “Journey’s Greatest Hits” in my garage. Shut it. This is the workout I did. It was HARDER than I thought!! I ALWAYS think CrossFit-like workouts will be easier than they turn out to be. It was such a different workout for my core. I’ll be doing this workout again!

- Tues, the 22nd: 3 x 1502 meters at the Metrodome. I met Pharmie at the Metrodome after work. It’s a GREAT place to run, but I always need to watch myself: that hard, hard floor can do a number on my legs if I go too far. So I always just do intervals at the dome. Here’s what it looked like as people were starting to run:

I did 3 x 1502 every 7 minutes, so I had about 1:35 rest. (BTW, I was doing "1502 meters" because that's 2.5 laps around the dome.) My first one felt fine. Number 2 got hard. And the third one was killer. Here were my times:

5:26
5:24
5:30

Average: 5:26.6 / interval.
Comes out to 5:48 / mile pace.

I got back to my camera, and quick snapped a nasty photo of me all sweaty and pooped:

Oh hi “vein of approval!”

Pharmie, GreenKing, and I jogged a little cool down. Here’s Pharmie and GreenKing on the far right:

On the way out of the Dome parking lot, I saw 2 great bumper stickers on the car in front of me:

If there are any locals interested, here’s more info on dome running for 2009-2010.

And I’m up for “Endurance Blog of the Year:” please click here and cast a vote for “Steve in a Speedo!” Thanks!!