Jun 4 - v - p

FIT:

BM pyramid!!!

It’s one of my favorite workouts. 

0.5 mi warmup (4:37), dynamic stretching & striders  35:27

4x100              (100m jogs after each rep)

…3x200          (200m jogs after each rep)

……2x400      (200m jogs after each rep)

………1x800  (400m jogs after each rep)

……2x400      (200m jogs after each rep)

…3x200          (200m jogs after each rep)

4x100              (100m jogs after each rep)

 

I’ve only managed to finish this workout maybe 4x ever.  It amounts to 5.25 mi of running, 2.25 of which are sprinting. 

5.2 in 40:04, 7:42 ave.

Certainly, track workouts are physically tough and always causes a few butterflies in my tummy before I pull the trigger and start the session.  You push yourself to the pain zone repeatedly.  But it’s also mentally tough.  In a normal out-and-back run or a single-loop course, there’s less of a temptation to call it quits, because you have to go back anyway.  At the track, you can pull off to the side and call it a day when the going gets tough.   I’ve done a few half-BM pyramids and first-few-steps pyramids (see June 1) in my time.  It’s especially hard in hot weather, or when you push a little too hard in the first few steps and burn yourself out.  So if you can make it and correctly control the effort so that you can make it, keeping it hard enough so that you’re tempted to quit, but smart enough that you don’t need to stop completely, it does a lot for your mental game (as well as your physical game).

The workout is named after my super fast friend Beth Massey, who learned this from her HS coach.  In college, this workout never failed to knock down my mile time by like 5s each time.  Pretty sweet, huh?  Just do the work, get ‘er done, and see your times drop.  

I wonder... with a 6:04 this week in not cool temps, when I could’ve given a bit more, pre-BM pyramid, what could I possibly do next week, if I had ideal conditions?  I think I could definitely PR (sub 5:59), but the goal (sub 5:50)… iffy.  Yeah, I’m probably in 5:57 shape now.  I dunno.  Who knows.  And unless I find a Mondo track and had decent temps, I don’t think I’d try.  Well, there are a series of track races in town, but I don’t know how big the heats are.  We’ll see.

Sooo… Not too many stats from this run.  But I do know that the second 400 of the 800 was done in 1:43.  Not bad, I guess, considering my single 400 typical split is 1:30.  That was the slower of the two laps, too.

I’ve never done Yasso 800s before, where you can predict your marathon time based on the ave time of 12 800s.  I don’t know if  I could handle 12x3:20, but I think 3:22 is about my ideal condition, perfect buildup marathon time, based on the charts, which are accurate in the other distance predictions for me.  I guess it depends on how much rest you get between each 800.  6 miles of sprinting must wear on your legs, though, so I don’t know.  Maybe I’ll try some day, if I do find that Mondo track.

Anyway, I had some good runs this week in Pton, despite the severe tummy issues.  The mile was better than expected, the LR was slow due to the tummy but completed, and the full BM was successful.

I also got to play around a lot, taking pictures and video, trying the water pit, and finding over 2 shoes worth of spikes.  Lots of fun, like a theme park to me.