Some Speed Workouts Leading Up to a "Road Mile"

I'm racing a sprint tri this weekend, and then my next race will probably be the Richard A Hoska Midsummer Mile on July 10th. My last two 1-mile races have been my 3rd and 2nd slowest mile times ever (4:55.9 and 4:56.6), so I want to try to do a LITTLE "1-mile specific" training to try to get this one a little faster. Hopefully. We'll see.

I asked if former coach Jen Harrison had a few workouts for me over twitter:

She responded:

So you see my plan: 3 Wednesday morning speed workouts, and then racing on the 4th Wednesday evening, HOPING for decently sub-5. Jen sent me this:

I thanked her and told her I was ready to suffer. She said:

"My upper body needs more muscles. I need more sponsors. My shoes don't look fast enough." Is that enough "think like a miler" talk? :)

So I hit the track on Wednesday morning for my first 200s in 16 YEARS!!!!!! We used to run 200 intervals for the 800 in track, but I've NEVER done anything that short / fast in recent years because that sort of speed has made my heel injured. But my heel has been feeling good lately.

Here are the times from my watch that I logged:

1.5 mile WU: 4:16, 8:19

1:56 walking around at the track, talking to myself trying to hit this hard: "12 x 200... 45 sec walking break between.... start at 35 and drop to 30..."

0:34.2, 0:34.3, 0:34.3, 0:32.4, 0:32.0, 0:32.2, 0:32.7, 0:32.7, 0:32.1, 0:32.2, 0:31.9, 0:31.9

3:46 walking

2 mile CD: 8:50, 8:10

I could NOT get down to 30 seconds. I couldn't even catch my breath after the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th interval to grab a sip of water during my break. I was hashed. What a workout. I tweeted my results:

I sort of got a compliment from an old-school running buddy:

If anyone's interested in some 400s (or in just sharing a track with me), meet me at the St. Thomas track between 4:45 and 5:00 a.m. on Wednesday! Jen says 8 x 400 dropping from 72 to 65 (yeah right... but I'm gonna try).

And follow Coach Jen and me on twitter to see our updates on the training. Happy weekend!!

p.s. My quads are STILL just a LITTLE sore from the 200s 3 days ago... I'm hoping they feel just a little better for tomorrow's sprint triathlon! Wish me luck!!