Speed Play – Session 1

Distance : 5.0 mi
Time 50

I started the summer session for the interval workout workshops with Kory (again).  This set goes for 10 weeks and finishes in early June.  So with my legs still very heavy from the half marathon effort we headed to the outdoor track at the Glenmore Athletic Park to do workouts outside.  (Ah summer).

There was another group working on the track so our group laid out an ad hoc track on a vacant soccer field.  What could be better doing speed work outside on grass – but not barefoot.   Running on grass should do a lot for foot confidence and ankle strength.  I can feel the difference in required effort, it is about halfway between beach running and track running.

We did the usual warm-up 4 min @50%, 3 min @ 60% and 2 Min @70%,  then did dynamic stretching and finally the speed workout.  It was a random fartlek like workout.  We would jog for a minute and then at a whistle pickup the pace for a random interval between 30 seconds and two minutes.  The tough parts are that you never know what effort to put out as the time is random and you never know when the intervals are going to end.

The reasoning behind the workout is to teach pace for sustainability.  I find it to be one of the harder workouts.   It was a good thing that the session was on Tuesday night as it started to snow on Wednesday afternoon and was downright unpleasant by this morning.

 

Plod On.