Another Round of Rush Hour

If my math is right, it has been about 3 weeks since I have been at a Rush Hour Speed Workout.  That is way too long as I discovered tonight!

The temp this evening was warm and windy. Let me clarify that...the temp was very warm. Our track is situated near an elementary school and preschool and the preschool building is at one corner of the track.  This provides one small area of shade and when the temps are really high we can often con Mike Rush into starting from that corner of the track.  Tonight I had to bribe him with homemade salsa in order to let us start from the shade.  It didn't do a ton of good though since he decided to have a workout with very little rest in it. 

This workout was designed to help make 5K pace seems easy...especially the finishing kick at the end of a race.  We started out with 2x200m with 20 sec rest between them at our desired finishing pace for a 5K.  Everyone got to take 60 sec rest after the 200's before starting a reverse ladder.  The ladder began at 1600m then went down by 400 m for a ladder of 1600, 1200, 800, 400.  Each of these distances was to be done at 5K pace and included a 100m shuffle of active recovery between each rung instead of standing rest.  At the end of the 400, everyone got another standing rest of 60 sec and then it was time to repeat the 2x200m with 20 sec rest.  The goal was to equal the pace of the first 200's!

So that's what the workout was supposed to be if you followed it exactly as Mike prescribed.  Unfortunately the heat got to me and wore me out.  During the 1200 I had to stop for a little water break and to wet down a sweat rag  to help cool me off.  During the 800, I took another quick break to cool off and pull myself together.  Each of these instances subtracted about 200m because I cut across the inner field of the track in order to meet back up with my running partner Anne. She is such a trooper and much stronger mentally than me.  I think my paces were in the range of where I wanted them to be but I really only paid attention to my 200 splits which were right around an 8 min mile.  I would kill to run an 8 min mile in a race!

Another fun workout and Mike has given me until Wednesday to drop off my salsa bribe! Next week, the group is starting speed workouts to prepare for the Twin Cities Marathon in October. Even though the marathon is not my goal, Mike thinks that doing the longer distance workouts will help with my half marathon goals.  He is going to offer some breaks so that those focused on shorter distance races have an option to shorten the workout. I'll keep you posted on how the workouts change over the coming weeks. 

Have a great week and stay tuned for a giveaway this week.