A Cinnamon Roll Fueled Hard Run

It’s a long story that I’ll inevitably end up sharing sometime soon on my photography blog, but I was granted access to the Minnesota State Fair last week during the 4 a.m. hour to make photos! Over the weekend, I sent 50 photos to my contact at the State Fair, so I think I got SOMETHING! On my last morning there, I posted this photo on Facebook (after posting about it regularly for the few days before):

So yeah, I decided to NOT do a hard run and then ate a huge cinnamon roll, but then I decided to DO that hard run once I started running a bit later. I did a version of a Coach Jen Harrison workout from 12 years ago where I did 5x (3 min HARD / 3 min MODERATE). It’s a super simple workout, but it’s the fact that it’s MODERATE instead of EASY between the harder efforts that gets ya. My 3:00 efforts got shorter and shorter as the workout went on, because I was dying. (Not really.) It was taking its toll:

Lap 1 was a 1/2 mile warm up, and then the RED were the HARD,
and then ORANGE were the MODERATE.

Notice the circled times above: I had an extra 0:15 left after I did my first hard half mile, and that time just dropped as the workout went on. So I was running less and less with each 3:00 effort. On the last effort, I didn’t even make a half mile, but that was all up Marshall Hill coming up from the Mississippi River - that was BRUTAL.

My route.


A close-up: from right-to-left was my first effort (in RED), and from left-to-right
starting at split 13 was my final effort, but look how SLOW it registered up the hill! Yikes.


My cadence showed the efforts: I have higher (better) footstrikes when I run hard.
Glad I kept higher footstrikes up the hill on the last effort (been working on that).


My pace shows the first 3 efforts really clearly, then it gets muddy...


You wouldn’t know it, but in white is the last effort up that dang Marshall Hill!


My heartrate showed the efforts well! And notice my HR only “drops”
to 175 before the final effort. No rest! No “easy” running during these efforts!


Elevation. That big final hill was my last effort.

A few days after this workout, I looked back to Coach Jen had me do 12 years ago. I figured this was a shorter version because I remembered this workout being 8x(3 hard/3 mod), but it turns out that Jen's version was 6x(3 hard/3 mod). So I just barely cut this short (to fit in the distance I wanted to do - didn't want to overdo it).

I noted in my training log 12 years ago that over those 6 efforts I went 6 miles: a bit shorter in #s 4 and 5, but a bit longer earlier on and in the last one. (This was pre-Garmin, but still a solid estimate.)

This time, I went 3.84 miles over the first 4 efforts, and once I figured in the 5th that was uphill (and therefore EXTRA slow), I clocked 4.69 miles over 5 efforts. So NOT SHOCKINGLY, I've slowed down over the last 12 years.