Workout in Review: Alternations

I’m going to attempt to do a series of posts documenting the different types of workouts that Em and I are doing this Spring as we prepare for different race distances: her for a prolonged race season at everything from 1500 to 10k, me for a brief period of 5k-10k racing followed by a buildup to Grandma’s marathon in June.  This past week, a rarity occurred: we both did the same workout on the same day.  You might think this would happen more often, but Emily and I are very different runners, so our workouts tend to diverge a bit.  Anyway, the workout was this: 8x600 run at roughly goal 5k pace, with 400 recovery after each one run at what I would term a “strong aerobic pace”.  

The goal of the workout is to serve as a transition from one training staple to another - the first being early season threshold-type work, the second being mid-season race pace intervals.  Running 600s at 5k pace is not terribly challenging in and of itself, especially with a recovery interval that isn’t too much shorter, but by pushing the rest down, we can turn this session into a mix of race specificity and general conditioning.  There was an excellent article done a few months ago in Running Times, by Steve Magness, which addresses this same subject.  For a more scientifically oriented view of why such workouts work, I can’t do the topic more justice.

But on to specifics.  Emily did the workout, which is a total of 8k in distance, in 29:49.  Her 600s ranged from 1:57 to 2:00, averaging around 1:59.  Her recoveries were all right around 1:44 to 1:45 for 400, so about 7 minute per mile pace.  Here’s a little workout video I made of it:

We can take two things from this:
1. She was able to get in 4800 meters of quality work at her 5k PR pace (16:33).
2. She was able to get in 8000 meters of total running at sub 6 minute pace.

Now if you told me either one of these individually was the outcome of a workout, I would say, “Great! Sounds like we got some good work in!”  But the beauty of the alternation workout is that we were able to get both in simultaneously.  As I said, these workouts are a bridge from one type of training to another.  We might be coming from workouts like a 10 mile progressive run, or a 6 mile tempo run, which while great, don’t by themselves allow someone to race a great 5k.  To do that, we want to move towards workouts like 6x1k or 4x1600 at 5k race pace, but when it’s still February, and you want to compete well into April, May, and beyond, jumping into truly difficult interval training means sacrificing something else.  With mixed workouts like the alternation session above, you don’t have to.  

The only downside: these workouts are really, really hard if you do them correctly.  They don’t have the lactic burn of race specific type sessions, but they require a lot of toughness to continue running quickly when you’re really starting to get tired.  Running 5:59 minute pace for Emily, or 5:27 pace for me, is an entirely different thing when you’re alternating between 5:20 and 7:00 pace, or 4:50 and 6:35 pace, respectively.  But if it was an easy workout, it probably wouldn’t work nearly as well, would it?

Indoor Time and Feeling Just Fine!

Last weekend I ran my first 3,000 meter race in three years. The end result surprised me (to say the least) and also was a warm welcome to the 2012 racing season. 9:41.44 was my official time, good enough for 5th place. In 2009, at the same meet, I finished 6th with a 10:04 3k. That's right, the competition has gotten tougher, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

The race started slow, 79 for the first 400m, and people were stumbling all over the place. I was a little annoyed prior to the race because they had me starting behind the first line of girls instead of doing a staggered start, but I came to find out it put me in near perfect position, right in the inside lane. I stayed there until 200 meters to go : )

The starting line! Little ol' Emily is tucked away in the second row of lane 1.

The lead group started picking up the pace and soon I found myself running a 75 here, 76 there. I didn't realize the change in pace at the time, I just wanted to stay in contact with the chase pack. The three other girls I was running with changed leads periodically, but my plan was to run as fast as I could for as long as I could without using a lot of extra effort and losing my inside position. I fell off from my group for a couple of laps in the middle, but I was able to catch back up. The race went by so quickly and it's one of the reasons why I LOVE indoor and the 3,000!! I felt like a little mini race car hugging the turns and stepping on the gas when it was time to go. 2,800m into the race, I used the "Loeffler Kick" and ended up going from 8th to 5th within the last 200 meters with a saucy 35 second last lap. 5th through 8th place all finished within one and half seconds of each other. I was roughly five seconds back from 4th, and the winner, Becky Wade, came in at 9:29! Splits were also pretty saucy, 4:49 for the first 1500 meters and 4:51 for the last, or in terms of kilometers, 3:13.94, 3:14.36, 3:13.14.

A lap or two into the race

I had no idea what my time was until I looked down at my watch post race. I couldn't believe it. I had gotten a couple of splits throughout the race, but I stink at math (it's one of the reasons I married Jer, he's a walking calculator); I just knew that anything below 40 was good. The goal going into the race was simply to run close to my outdoor 3,000m personal best, 9:53. We thought on a great day high 9:40's, especially because the only speed work I got in prior to racing was an Aussie quarters workout and some hill sprints, but both were only a week or so before the race. Needless to say when I saw a 9:41 on my watch I couldn't stop smiling. It was a great race, with a great finish for me.

Jer got the race on tape, which you can view HERE.

I'm in the lime green sports bra and pig tails. It's a little blurry, mainly from technical difficulties, but also from an excited camera man.

Funny thing is I came so close to not even starting the race because of a tight IT band from some hill sprints a couple days prior. It was super tight on the morning shakeout and even tighter on the warm-up. The last thing I wanted to do was have it tighten up so bad that it'd cause more harm than good during the race, but I did a couple strides and decided to jump in.

Anyways, lots of exciting things to come this season! I finally got up to 90 miles this week with some great quality workouts. First off was a 5 mile tempo Wednesday morning, at 6:12 pace, and then 4 x 200m's in the evening, hitting 31's and 32's for some speed, and finally a 3 x 3 mile workout today, working down from 6:30 to 6:00 pace this morning. Next race up is a local 5k that is being put on by a special friend, Ceci from www.iaapweb.com, and my next track race will be at my alma mater, Trinity University, at the end of February.

PS: Photo cred goes out to Lauren Smith's mom, for grabbing some of the awesomeness that went on that day!