Marathon Training Day 19
Friday.
Well. I was delighted it was Friday because of course I do not work on Saturdays or Sundays. BUt Since we started the Marathon training, I have been approaching Friday with a bit of Dread. THe YASSO 800’s workout.
I’ve had some real challenges in the past weeks with this workout. It continues to challenge me. Today was better though. I do not know why. I warmed up by running 1.5 miles not on the track, just out in the neighborhood. I then made my way down to the track, where I was dismayed to see a group of fit looking athletes all huddled around a coach. It was some sort of Triathlete training camp (not sure if these are real athletes or wanna bes). They all looked super fit. I felt a little bit embarrassed because I knew I’d be running slow and doing the walking in between intervals. I talked briefly with their coach so I could be out of their way and groaned a little about the 800’s. He commisserated a bit and I admit, I wanted to make sure he knew I was doing 800’s not just running out of steam every half mile. Kind of silly, as if he cared.
So I started out, nervous as Heck, thinking this could not possibly work. I found staying on the far outside of the track was a lot better than being on the inner. Reason being is that I was never quite sure when the 800 mark would come up, so I did not have landmarks to mentally defeat me. (What, I’m only at the little american flag pole?) Anyway. The first one went pretty smoothly, and I was shocked at how well I felt on the walk and recovered I felt. My initial plan was to slow down the intervals and take them at a more “comfortably hard” pace, rather than the “Bat out of hell” pace I had been attempting. Strangely, the pace when I checked was the same as last week’s Bat out of Hell pace, but I felt less vomity.
Yasso number 2 was also pretty darn good. I was several seconds faster and still felt pretty good. Yasoo Three was even faster, but on the second half of the half mile, I started to feel my legs fatiguing.
Yasso 4: ok, but not as good.
Yasso 5: Definitely not good. got a bit dizzy and my hands felt funny. My coach thinks I may have been holding my breath..
Because of the funny feeling on round 5, I quit right there, did a cool down run and cycle and thats it for the day.
I was Lucky to have conversation with my coach. He answered a lot of my questions that we failed to get to the other day, and he was in a super good mood, as was I so it was easy to enjoy each other’s company. He really helped me move on from some lingering questions and get a bit more focused on the NOW. He and I are both calling that speed workout a win. It predicted a 4:19 marathon for me. IF, I had been able to run 5 more. Now, I do not think I can run a 4:19. But Skeletor said, “Don’t sell yourself short” I’m not sold on the Yasso are a predictor, but, it will be interesting to see what happens when I hit Bayshore.
FOr me this was a Super training day.
- Posted in: Racing plans ♦ Speed work ♦ Training plans
