Track Work and Birthdays

Yesterday I did my final speed work leading up to the marathon. In reality, this speed work is probably not necessary - if I haven't developed the speed work by now, one day of it ain't gonna help me on Sunday. However, since I have been doing my speed work according to plan, I figured why skip it now?

Now that the days are getting shorter and school has started, it's totally put a cramp in my style when it comes to going to the track. I have to wait until after-school sports are finished to get on the local high school track, and by that point I really only have an hour-ish of daylight left before it gets iffy. Luckily the track workouts peaked when it was still light until 7, so I haven't had to run too many times in the dark. And, really, I'm going around in circles. How difficult can it possibly be?

I finished work and got to the track around 5:30 yesterday - just enough time to get in a short - but intense - day. I had 2x800s and 4x400s to complete - which is pretty much a walk in the park at this point. Considering I peaked somewhere around 6x1600s - a mere two miles of speed was no sweat (and it literally wasn't a sweat because it was hovering somewhere around 49* and I was in short-shorts).

Total tangent: The past couple times I have gone to the track there has been a woman that comes about the time that I'm finishing up my workout and doing my cool down. This in and of itself is nothing weird, as it's actually something I see a lot of over the summer. Why people feel the need to get in their car and drive to a track to simply walk is beyond me - is the neighborhood where they live not suitable for walking? I don't understand. Anyway, the significance of this woman is that she walks the track backwards WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY TEXTING/EMAILING. Really, what is the point? It takes her upwards of 7:00 to do one lap - really, friends. That's not exercise. Maybe if you put your phone down and concentrate on what you are doing, you'll be able to pick up the pace. Or, better yet, just walk forwards because any benefit you may have gained by walking backwards (which is negligible) has been negated by your tortoise-like speed.

Anywho - so seeing as how I had a short work out, I went all out for everything. Here's the breakdown:

800 - 3:05.8
800 - 3:06.6
400 - 1:21.8
400 - 1:24.3
400 - forgot to start my watch, but based on PRE, probably somewhere in the 1:23-1:25 range
400 - 1:19.9 <--ouch

This was short, but the intensity was somewhere in the 110% range. While not the blazing fast speeds of my high school winter track days, I was solidly happy with what I did. Looking back at when I first started doing track work, my 800s where in the 3:10-3:20 range and my 400s where in the 1:29-1:35 range. So essentially I've taken almost 10 seconds off of each. Not too shabby - especially since I've been training for a marathon and not a track meet.

Rio 2016 here I come! Just kidding!

Totally switching gears here, everyone should go wish SJ and Mary a happy birthday! Yep, two people in the same family with the same birthday! It's like crazy town.