Final Confidence-Boosting Interval Session Before Upcoming 1-Mile Race

This weekend is the Raspberry Run 1-Mile, and I'm seeing if I can STILL keep it under 5:00. I had PLANNED to end last week with a big interval workout: 16x200 done as 4x (4x200) with 200 jogging between the 200s and 3:00 rest between the sets of 4. But I was afraid that'd be too much as I've felt a little over-trained lately (not TOO trained for this race - just that I haven't had any great workouts as my legs have felt tired).

So I looked back to the final interval workouts over these last 3 years of mid-summer 1-mile races. I thought I'd see a bunch of 200s like I planned to do. But I only saw that last year:

- 2024 was 16x200
- 2023 was 8x400 (which feels easier than 16x200)
- 2022 was a TINY 6x200

So that made me feel better about thinking I could do less. So I just cut a set out of the bigger workout and did 12x200 done as 3x (4x200) with 200 jogging between the 200s and 3:00 rest between the sets of 3.

A meeting of bunnies in my neighbor's driveway as I took off for my run.


The University of St. Thomas track at 5:30 a.m.

That ended up being a nice workout as it was a bit smaller so it made me work harder. I was happy with these splits:

[Times are 200 interval followed by 200 jog back to the start.]

34.8, 1:09
36.4, 1:04
34.9, 1:05
35.3, 2:56 = 35.35 ave

34.0, 1:08
33.9, 1:04
33.7, 1:04
34.0, 2:59 = 33.90 ave

33.0, 1:06
32.8, 1:04
33.0, 1:04
33.0, 3:14 = 32.95 ave

I didn't really know my times for previous workouts like this, but I was happy getting that 2nd set under 0:34, and REALLY happy getting the final set under 0:33!! Overall, my 200s averaged 0:34.07.A few weeks ago, the 16x200 version of this workout averaged over 1 second slower at 0:35.03. Doing this workout a year ago before the 1-mile race averaged 0:34.40. And doing this workout before the 1-mile race 2 years ago averaged 0:34.23. I know I did 1 less set this time, but that speed really helped boost my confidence for this weekend's race!

Lots of fast 200s followed by easy 200s.


12 fast 200s. Note how I stopped to try not to die right after the final one
(before jogging back to my water bottle).

Come race day, I still don't know if I'll see my first 2 quarter-mile splits of 1:18 and 1:17, or if I'll see 1:12 and 1:13. I hope I can post some decent opening splits and then hold on to my 4th straight year of sub-5:00 miles!