A Descending 4x(4x200) Track Workout

I was looking back at old, short workouts, and came across this post from 10 years ago. In that post, I shared a tweet from Coach Jen:

So the workout was 16x200 done 4x(4x200) with 200 jogging between the 200 meter reps, and 3:00 of rest between the sets of 4. BACK THEN (as seen in the tweet with my YOUNGER BODY), she told me to run the first set of 4 at 0:35, the next set at 0:33, the next at 0:31, and then final set at red line. I never hit the set of 0:31s as that was too fast, but I did all I could. I told myself this time that I could add 0:01 to each of those sets and shoot for 0:36, 0:34, 0:32 (knowing I might not hit that), and then all out for the 4th set.

Here's what I logged:

0:34.5 (1:08)
0:37.5 (1:05)
0:35.6 (0:58)
0:35.6 (3:00)

0:34.1 (1:05)
0:34.6 (1:01)
0:33.6 (1:04)
0:34.6 (3:00)

10 years ago, my first set averaged 0:35.83 and my second set averaged 0:33.10. And this year, those sets averaged 0:35.80 and 0:34.23 (so BARELY faster for #1 and over a second slower for #2). That's RIGHT NEAR my 0:36 and 0:34 goals.

I started the 3rd set (the "0:32 goal" set) feeling sluggish, but I still cranked out a 0:33.6 first interval. I thought I had a shot of hitting a 0:32.x interval as my 2nd one, but I couldn't. The 3rd set just kept slowing up, and then I tried to survive for the 4th set and just run hard!

0:33.2 (1:05) - felt sluggish, so happy with 33!
0:33.6 (1:02) - best chance to hit 32, but didn't have it in my legs.
0:33.7 (0:59)
0:34.4 (2:58)

0:32.4 (1:05)
0:33.7 (1:03) - tried to keep that the slowest!
0:33.4 (1:06)
0:33.4 (1:04)

So to compare these to 10 years ago again: back then, my 3rd set averaged 0:32.25 and my 4th set averaged 0:31.98. But these slowed up a lot this year, averaging 0:33.73 and 0:33.23 (so that was 1.5 sec slower for the 3rd set and 1.25 sec slower for the final set).

So I still had nice descending splits in my averages for each set: 35.8, 34.2, 33.7 and 33.2.

Here's what my Garmin showed me after the workout:

Fast 200s and easy jog 200s. Yep.


Close-up of the start line showing the walking I did with my few 3:00 rests.
(The one that went into the infield was me looking for some shade!)


Heart rate is what you'd expect...


... and so is my pace.

I have a real love/hate relationship with these shorter intervals. It's great that it's done so quick (and I feel like it's a nice "balance" to my longer endurace-based running), but it gets much more acutely painful. Ugh.