Watt's Running

If you like running your fanny off, then I had fun at practice yesterday. We had to run sixteen 200Ms at our 5K pace with a 100M recovery after each. Steve, our coach, gave us a pace time we were to run. I was told to run 59 seconds for a 200M – no more or less. In other words 7:52 per mile. This is what I ran in the Go for the Gold 10K. I ran in a small group of four including Charles and Chad. My times were (51.28, 57.09, 57.13, 56.99, 54.75, 56.09, 55.28, 56.14, 56.89, 53.72, 54.87, 57.00, 54.65, 53.99, 54.22, and 54.74). Their average is 55.3 seconds – not quite 57, but that’s 7:22.4/M. The total time was 24:51.46 or 8:17/M. Not bad and remember it includes the recovery. Oh, one other thing, we had to give our goal times to Steve. Well I did and he took them and said that he felt I could do better. He said that I should strive for 7:16/M for the 5K pace and 7:32/M for the 10K pace. Now that’s something, but at least I can try.

Update: To count the sixteen laps I decided to count in binary with four of my fingers. A folded finger was a zero and an extended finger was a one. It worked swell.

When the coach explained this course he would say “quality workouts”. I really don’t know what “quality” was in tonight’s workout, but it was fun. We warmed up by running to the School for the Deaf track. Then it was four repeats of 1 lap (400) at 5K pace followed by 1/2 lap recovery, two repeats of 2 laps (800) at 10K pace followed by 1 lap recovery, and ending with four repeats of 1 lap at 5K pace followed by 1/2 lap recovery. I timed byself with my watch. My four 400s were 1:45.70, 1:53.39, 1:52.62, and 1:51.34. My 2 800s were 4:08.38, and 3:56.63. My four 400s were 1:47.62, 1:53.52, 1:51.75, and 1:51.00. Working this out and averaging the various results means that my mile is 7:23 for the 5K and 8:05 for the 10K. The 10K race this weekend with be insightful.

The marathon is over, I’ve emptied the blog, and I’ve signed up for a Personal Record 5K/10K course. I’ve attended its information session on 3/2/2005. The first class was on Saturday 3/5/2005 at 7AM. We ran an easy 7 miles on the Town Lake trail from IH35 to MoPac. I ran with David and we chatted the whole time which helped pass the time. Next week is a time trial 10K.