Throwing a Wrench in TC 10 Mile Training with Intervals

When Coach Jen coached me to a 59:05 10 Mile in 2010, I had a duathlon I wanted to do about a month out from the 10 Mile, so Jen worked that into my training plan.

When I re-used Coach Jen’s workouts for last year’s TC 10 Mile (which ended up just being a few seconds slower than my 14-year-old PR!), the Square Lake Sprint Triathlon fit perfectly into that training plan on the same weekend as that duathlon 14 years earlier. That triathlon last year was my 4th year in a row of doing that race - a streak that won’t be continuing this year. Dang.

So knowing that those weekends weren’t going to line up like last year AND knowing that I’d be out of town with family on the Friday that my first hard track workout was supposed to start, I just let the plan be more free-form. I did the first hard track workout a week early, and then when I was out of town the following week, I did the 2nd hard workout from Jen, which was a tempo run.

All of that is to say that this past Friday, I was a week ahead in my training which was the Friday right before the triathlon (which isn’t happening for me this year). So I jumped TWO weeks ahead in my speed work training and found another hard track workout. This was like the kick-off track workout from a few weeks back, but with shorter rest: 4x1600 with 2:00 total rest between, working to descend the intervals.

Last year, these averaged 5:33.2 as I just barely lost the perfect descend by dying on the last interval (running 5:39, 5:34, 5:28, and 5:30). I didn’t have major goals for this year, but I figured it “would be nice” to start in the upper 5:30s and see if I could be faster than 5:25 for the final one. (As I type that out, I realize that’s a pretty tight window to descend! And I see that would have my fastest interval faster than my fastest from last year... Yikes.)

My first one was a BIT slow, but not bad at 5:41. The 2nd was faster. And the 3rd was faster yet at 5:31. I was “going for broke” in the final one, but my opening 800 was rough. I tried to pick up the pace in the last half (which I WAS able to do), but I was hurting. My times were just a BIT slower than I had hoped, but I got my nice descend:

2:51 + 2:49 = 5:41.4
2:46 + 2:47 = 5:34.3
2:46 + 2:44 = 5:31.1
2:46 + 2:41 = 5:27.8

And to be fair, times could have been SLIGHTLY slower because there were some benches to run around at the 150 meter mark of each lap, as well as 2 guys that appeared to be setting up a mini stage during my workout at the 350 meter mark, so I was swinging wide at times.

Mini stage going up right on the 2 Ss of “O’Shaughnessy.”
(Notice how I swung wide on all but my first green warm-up lap.)


Pace and Heart Rate. I don’t think my HR was measuring correctly as I was well over 165, I’m SURE!

So I averaged 5:33.7 this year, and 5:33.2 last year. I'm THRILLED to just give up a half second this year! This workout along with my long run last week makes for 2 solid speed days for the TC 10 Mile! I won't be keeping many more (if any) workouts this close to last year's splits, but these 2 were nice!