Wednesday, October 1, 2008 [9M]

10x400m. 67, 69, 65, 66, 65, 64, 64, 63, 65, 64. Since this is a recovery week I wanted a fairly easy workout and opted for some quarters with 200m rest between each interval. The rest periods were around 1:40, which allowed me to get the legs moving fast but still be completely recovered before each interval. It was a long day at work, I didn't leave the office until 8:30 and it was almost 9 by the time I was out the door. I ran over to Carlmont high school and didn't take much time stretching and running strides before getting the workout under way. I wasn't sure what I should be shooting for and was thinking at first something between 66-68 would be good enough to get some good turnover without having to force things too much. On the first one I came through in 32 but eased up too much in the second 200. I got out slow on the second one, coming through in 34, and not doing much to pick up the pace on the second half. I felt like I wasn't running smoothly at all and thought that I would have to work harder than I wanted to hit 68s. I stopped looking at 200 splits for the rest of the workout and was somewhat surprised when I saw a 65 for the 3rd interval as I was expecting something along the lines of the second one. I guess it has become the norm lately to need a couple of intervals before finding my rhythm. From then on everything went very smoothly and I was able to run faster than I was expecting. I was getting out somewhat aggressively and didn't have much trouble maintaining a quick turnover throughout the interval. I was taking a good bit of rest so this wasn't a very challenging workout but it was good to see that I still have some speed in my legs despite not doing any speedwork for some time.