I have my dear running partner back in Houston to thank for inviting me to the Jack Daniel's cult party and encouraging me to drink the Kool-Aid. (Actually, the Kool-Aid went down smoothly as I was continualy impressed with his results from following Jack Daniels). Since then it has just been one ball-busting workout after another. The other beautiful thing about Jack Daniels is that I map out the entire schedule 24 weeks in advance of my marathon of choice so I can sit and stew about the killer workout that I may have in 2 or 3 weeks. Tonight was the toughest workout of Phase II of the marathon training program:
2 mile warmup
5x(1400m at Interval Pace+ 1000m recovery)
2 mile cooldown
Interval Pace = 4:52/4:48/4:44 min/1400m for VDOT's 58,59, and 60
Why 1400m repeats? (vs. something "normal" like 1200m or mile?). Well, Jack suggests that the optimal duration of individual Interval training sessions is between 3-5 minutes each. He suggests that anything longer usually results in too great of an accumulation in blood lactate, which may cause one to cut their workout short or to run the last few intervals to slowly (which defeats the purpose of the workout). So, until I hit a VDOT of 66, there will be no mile repeats for me!
I decided to approach this workout with the utmost of caution. This does not match my style at all but I REALLY wanted to make it through all 5 sets. I have been really aggressive the last couple weeks, where I only needed to do 4x1200m repeats and I was totally done after 4...this would be undesirable tonight! My plan was to dial back to a VDOT=58 and then try to work my way to a 59 or MAYBE a 60 VDOT in the later intervals.
Here are the actuals:
2mile warmup: 7:20,7:21 min/mile
5x1400m (400m, 400m, 400m, 200m)
1. (83, 83, 81, 41): 4:48 min (VDOT =59)
2. (84, 82, 84, 41): 4:51 min (VDOT =58)
3. (82, 82, 82, 41): 4:47 min (VDOT =59)
4. (83, 82, 82, 41): 4:48 min (VDOT =59)
5. (82, 81, 82, 39): 4:44 min (VDOT =60)
2mile cooldown: 7:17, 7:14 min/mile
Here is my HR (red) and pace (blue) chart. You can see the impact of chasing the VDOT=60 on the final interval. Yes, I know that it is the final interval and I was more fatigued, but you can clearly see a spike when I decided it was a time to get that 60. Although it is just a few seconds, this additional effort at the beginning of the workout would have resulted in a crash 'n burn. Again, these plots always remind me the importance of pace, ESPECIALLY early in the workout.
Here are some videos from the night:
This is me, training all by myself. We will call this "Building Mental Toughness"!
This is what the final few strides look like. Please note my ever present awareness to hit my lap button...no sense struggling for precious seconds just to lose them on a technicality!
Trust me, I feel as tired as I look here! (just hit play, the video WILL show!)
A+
2 comments:
David, well done, nothing quite like the feeling of nailing a really tough, quality workout. That's what I'm talking a-boot!
Following Jack, I put several "300/240" workouts into the SMART schedule. That works very well when you have a large crowd with disparate abilities, as everybody finishes as well as starts together. It frees you from the track, so you can do the workout on the roads - we do this workout as a "pendulum" at Terry Hershey and it works very well. The disadvantage, of course, is that you don't know your distance or pace unless you have a lot more confidence in the precision of GPS technology than I do.
looks like someone needs a trip to PHOKAS..... chia pet!
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