The Track

There is no better place to measure your speed, or lack thereof, than the track. Now that the snow has finally melted and it's light out until 7pm, I was able to head to the Spencerport high school track after work last night.

The high school team was gone and no one else was on the track. It was just me, my Garmin and the 400m oval. My plan was to run 4/800 with a 400 jog recovery. I didn't need to go all out, but wanted the effort to be on the edge. Time is getting short for conditioning to race a decent 1/2 marathon at Lake Placid in June.

Yasso 800's, created years ago by Bart Yasso from Runner's World magazine, is still one of my favorite 1/2 and full marathon workouts. Simply build up from 3-4 800's, adding 1-2 per week until you can do 10/800 about 10-12 days before the goal race. The speed should be equivalent to your marathon goal pace (or faster for the 1/2). Want a 3:30 marathon? Then run the 800 repeats at 3:30, 3:50 marathon, repeats at 3:50, and so on. Simple in concept.

I checked the Garmin after the first 800. Wow was I glad no one was there. Well, maybe I was just getting warmed up? Second 800, faster, but geez I'm slow and maybe I can't do all four? Heck, four was an arbitrary number I picked anyhow. I'll change to 2/400. No, don't be a wimp, no one's here to judge me, another 800, who cares what the time is? Go out at a decent pace for 400m, then push it the last 400m, that's doable, right?

Third one done, hey, same time as number two. Well, that's okay, slow but consistent. The Bear came out at 600m, not good. No speed or endurance is not a great combination. But only one more, I can do one more, right? Again I take off at a good pace and pick it up for the last 400m, the Bear joining me at 600m, wow I am so noisy, this is ridiculous. Fat, old and slow. My new motto, maybe a tattoo?

The good news is I hit the same time again. I have a lot of work to do, and most of it will be alone, behind the scenes, hard work. If I don't have hope then I might as well forget about racing again. Next week will be 4/800 again, but hopefully at a much faster pace.