92 Days, 20 Hours to the start...
Due to work and school schedules, Fridays have become my main "quality" day for marathon training. I train other days too, but Fridays are the one day on which I can do a workout fresh. Last Friday I worked on endurance, and this Friday I did one of my favorite marathon workouts: Yasso-800s.
Developed by RunnersWorld chief running officer Bart Yasso, Yasso-800s involve a conversion of one's goal marathon time (hour, minutes) into an 800m time (minutes, seconds). So for instance, if I want to run a 3:30 marathon (3 hours, 30 minutes), my Yasso-800 pace should be 3:30 (3 minutes, 30 seconds). The idea is to start with 4x800m, and over the course of several weeks work up to 10x800m.
I'd hoped to do 6 this morning, but ended up only doing 5.5. Here's how it went.
I woke up a bit later than usual, and only managed to grab a banana and a few sips of water before heading out. I walked about 25 minutes to an old cinder track, sipping from a water-bottle and taking in the morning. The sun shone brightly between a smattering of hazy clouds here and there. The temperature at 8:05am (when I left the house) already felt pretty hot, and the air seemed heavy with moisture. A fragrant wind blew across the road as I walked, rustling the trees and causing drops of water to rain upon my head. Nearby I could hear a number of robins warbling away, as well as other birds whose songs I don't know as well. On the whole it was a beautiful morning, and I was glad to have time to enjoy it.
Arriving at the track, I continued to warm-up. Back in college, this would usually involve a period of 10-15 minutes of jogging, followed by a few stretches, and maybe some half-hearted sprint-drills. Lately I've had good results doing something different.
First I jogged a few minutes, then walked a few minutes while doing some dynamic stretches along the way. After that I ran another few minutes, feeling much faster than before. Then I'd walk again for a few minutes, and do some different dynamic stretches, followed by one final bout of running. By the end of this process I felt loose and fast, which is the idea for a warm-up I guess.The final stage of warm-up involved four strides on the track.
For the workout itself, I'd hoped to run 6x800m in 3:30. The splits for first 5 went as follows--3:15, 3:18, 3:19, 3:17, 3:16. As you can see, from the start I was going faster than I wanted, and while such a pace shouldn't be that hard, I found myself feeling pretty awful by the end of the 5th rep.
Should I run the 6th? I thought. Generally I would say no, especially if I wasn't feeling great. Today, however, I elected to try a little test: start the last rep, and see how things went.
I did this because sometimes getting started is the hardest part of a rep. I don't know why this is, but it may be a bit like cleaning your room or doing homework...the thought of doing it is more distressing than the actual doing. So while I was definitely not feeling that last 800 this morning, I decided to start and see what happened.
As it turned out, starting wasn't enough this time. I got to the 400m mark a few seconds behind pace, and just decided to call it a day.
On the whole, however, I felt today's workout was very positive. Because the grass was so wet, the warm-up and cool-down were done exclusively on pavement, which is good because I'll need to get accustomed to running on pavement for the race. Working-out in the heat and humidity was also helpful, because the conditions could be quite humid in DC, even at the end of October. Both elements fit into the larger scheme of increasingly-specific training as the date of competition approaches.
Finally, I was glad to have tested myself, even if the test didn't come off well. I'm usually pretty cautious about pushing the envelope, but sometimes doing so can yield great benefits, even when the push doesn't pan out.
And that might be the most important take-away from this workout; that sometimes you'll push and fail, but as long as the failure isn't a total disaster (i.e. causes a long-term injury) they can still be valuable. I now have a better idea what I can do in the heat and humidity, and can use that in the weeks to come. But for now, it is time to recover and prepare for next "quality" day. 92 days to go...
Happy Friday, friends :)
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