Memorial Day Speed Workout

Every year Mike Rush surprises our group with a special holiday workout for Memorial Day.  The week before the group votes on whether or not to switch the workout from the typical 6PM time to 8AM.  Again this year, the group voted for the 8AM start time!

Last year, the workout was a 5 minute all-out effort run to see how far you could go in that amount of time.  We weren't in for such a treat this year...our first clue should have been watching Mike place cones around the track.  I got an easy warmup in...maybe 1 1/2 miles and then took some time to do a little stretching.  The warmup finished and Mike started to tell us the workout.  To start with we would be doing plyos...approx. 50 m of each: High Knees,  Butt Kickers, Gum Check to the front, Gum Check to the back, Bounding, Lunges, Grapevine to the right, Grapevine to the left. This covered a full lap of the track.  At the conclusion of the plyo lap, head straight into a 800m at 5K pace.  REPEAT until your 800m pace falls off by more than 5 sec. 

I had super tight hamstrings and with my race on Saturday didn't want to stress myself with so much plyos.  I did the first lap with reduced lunges and then went into my 800 and was good with my pace.  From then on, I did partial plyos and then shuffled jogged to the next plyo start.  I kept up my pace and did 4 repeats of the set.  I had to take a short break to run to the car for my water bottle with ice in it before the last repeat.  It was overcast but still warm and humid and regular water just wasn't helping me.  My recovery was probably more than it should have been between each 800 but I'm okay with that.  I stayed on pace and that is a good confidence builder for me going into my first outdoor triathlon of the year this weekend!

After the track workout, I hopped on my bike for a workout on fatigued legs.  I had a couple of hills that took it out of me but on the flats I tried to hit a good cadence and maintain steady legs.  I was supposed to do a brick run after the ride but I don't think 1/3 mile really counts.  I started thinking about Chick-Fil-A towards the end of the bike and just couldn't get my head into the run.  Lesson learned!