Half Yasso 800 Workout Tonight

I went up to Knox Junior High in The Woodlands this evening to run with Bill Dwyer and Kim Hager's marathon and half marathon groups, which is joined by Carol Steele and Dana-Sue Crews' Team Woodlands Team In Training groups.

The e-mail said: "VO2 Max Run - 5 x 800 in 4 minutes with a 3-minute recovery. 1.5 mile warm up, 1 mile cool down."

I didn't let the 4-minute requirement deter me from showing up! The only problem was that I had a little bit of a hard time getting to the Junior High track. (Trust me, it was tough to get to. You could see it from one street, but you couldn't get to it from there.) Therefore, I had one lap of warm-up instead of six (6).

Kim had the right idea in mind when she suggested that maybe I only do four instead of five, but I replied that "I'm kind of stubborn."

The bottom line is this: In a group, I don't want any special treatment.

Granted I should have warmed up a little more just from an injury prevention standpoint (especially given that I'm working on getting my back and hamstrings straightened out), but there's something to be said for being part of a group and doing the same workout (even though I might not do it at the same speed).

I didn't record the separate laps in each 800, but here are how the splits looked like:

First 800 -- 4:28.38
Recovery -- 3:05.55
Second 800 -- 4:27.72
Recovery -- 3:44.92
Third 800 -- 4:39.34
Recovery -- 3:13.06
Fourth 800 -- 4:39.67
Recovery -- 4:08.77
Fifth 800 -- 4:43.02

The recovery times were a little inconsistent because there were two groups running. The slower group would start after the faster group started their second lap. When we started either the third or the fourth 800, I think Bill said something about trying to catch the group in front of us. I replied that "if I catch them, you better call the Chronicle." That solicited a couple of chuckles. :)

I was happy with the workout. Yesterday, I had an hour workout on the elliptical trainer and an additional 33 minutes on the stationery bike (after my visit to the chiropractor).

On the fifth 800, the first lap was 2:27 or 2:28 (which I hated hearing). Probably because the very first one of the evening was 2:08 or 2:09. So I was hoping that I could beat that on the last lap without killing myself. I was running with a young lady who was about a foot shorter than I. We were pacing off of each other. We stayed together all of the first lap.

We got down the first straightaway and into the first turn when I tried to make a little bit of a move. She stayed right with me though and edged ahead coming out of the turn into the other straightaway. She got ahead of me on the back side, but as we went into the last turn I thought that it was time to try and finish strong (and see if she would follow.)

This part was good from a mental standpoint because of the races that I ran on Friday and Saturday where I got passed in the last tenth of a mile. My body really felt like slowing down, but I tried to beat the girl that I was running with and did.

I motored, as much as a big guy could, and did the last lap in 2:15.

The star of the day, however, was Waverly. Since she's doing the Jingle Bell Run on the 10th of December (5 miles), we were going to run long on Thursday before I headed back to Vancouver.

She did about 6 5/8 laps on the track at school today in 20 minutes. So after doing a warmup lap with me, she proceeded to do another 11 laps -- for a total of almost 4.5 miles today.

When she passed by Bill during Run The Woodlands 5K #166 on Saturday morning, she said to him, "I really need to keep training." (Bill had shared that at a The Woodlands Running Club meeting Sunday afternoon and they chuckled about it this evening.)

(At about 11:15 p.m., I went back out in the subdivision and logged an additional 4.1 miles in a slow and steady 49:02.91.)