Another Night at the Track

After years of hating running at the track I am constantly craving my time running fast around the oval lately. I love running in the evening and even more so love doing hard, fast runs in the evening. Maybe it is because as a swimmer we had finals at night and my body is accustomed to going harder at night. Who knows. But combining running in the evening and running fast and I am a very happy girl.

After not being able to get in a track workout while on vacation I was anxious and excited for my workout this week. Of course I went the first day home on Monday. So far all of my workouts have been centered around hard 400's. I don't know why but there is something I really love about that distance.

This week, though, I wanted to try something a little longer since I will be running longer intervals as marathon training ramps up. I decided to compromise and do both 800's and 400's. Since this is the first time that I am really training hard for a race I am being ambitious with my goal time and paces. When running at the track I just kind of run hard and am satisfied with that but it is nice to see that I am right in the range for my goals.

3x 800 hard, 400 recovery
Goal: 3:36-3:47

I really didn't know how to pace myself for these 800's. Sometimes I would start out too fast and then die, while other times I started off too slow and wasn't able to recover. My splits are all over the place but I am generally happy with them. I really pushed the third repeat but in general none of them felt completely taxing. Faster paces are really getting easier, which is so amazing to me.

3:40 (7:24), 3:45 (7:30), 3:30 (7:01)

Next week I am going to do more 800's and practice running more consistently. The problem is I want to sprint but then can't hold on. I was surprised that the minimal recovery time really didn't seem to bother me. I thought it would really tire me out but I felt pretty good the whole time.

3x 400 sprint, 800 recovery
Goal: 1:36-1:47

I love the feeling of sprinting during 400's. I feel so fast, free, and just completely amazing. These weren't my fastest splits for 400's but they were pretty darn close.

1:38 (6:24), 1:38 (6:30), 1:35 (6:17)

I really love that these paces and becoming my normal. They feel comfortably hard and doable. Don't get me wrong, I am not going easy at the track. I'm not pushing myself to 100% though. That is for races. Regardless, I love my weekly sessions at the track and can't wait to continue to see improvement.