Two Excellent Workouts

It's Tuesday night. That must mean "Track Workout" at Knox Junior High in The Woodlands with Luke's Locker's Beat and The Woodlands Team In Training programs!

Waverly and I both logged excellent workouts this evening. We did our normal eight (8) laps around the track in lane 7, which comes out to 2.217 miles.

Her lap splits on Tuesday, December 12th were:
3:12.84, 3:22.78, 3:14.29, 3:18.60, 3:20.32, 3:18.67, 3:19.68 and 3:13.98 - 26:21.16 / 11:53

Last week, Tuesday, December 19th, they were:
2:58.36, 3:08.01, 3:11.96, 3:14.53, 3:14.75, 3:17.41, 3:21.88 and 3:05.30 - 25:32.20 / 11:31

Tonight, Tuesday, December 26th, they came in as:
6:16.81 (first two), 3:09.59, 3:14.78, 3:14.17, 3:16.89, 3:18.19 and 2:59.01 - 25:29.44 / 11:29

Once again, we worked on trying to stay as close to even pacing as we could (with the exception of the last lap as we picked it up in the last 200 meters). She did great! We tried to just run nice and easy as I tried to help her think about what this race day was going to be like.

I took just over a 4-minute break before I headed into my Yasso 800 workout.

I had an idea of what I wanted them to be around, but I figured I wouldn't know until I got the first one or two out of the way. Obviously, the weather - somewhere around 45 to 47 degrees this evening - was certainly in my favor. (This is what I'd like to have on January 14th!)

The times that you'll see below, you really won't believe. However, I have witnesses.

One of them is the coach whose plan I didn't follow to a "T" because of a variety of reasons - that all started with me! (The year has been challenging emotionally and the last day or two haven't been any different.) But what matters the most is that he's been there the entire way to encourage me on and have confidence in me as a person first and as a runner second.

I did Sunmart a couple of weeks ago (it seems like a month ago) for three people other than myself -- my daughter, Waverly (so she knows that she can always go just a little further), my good friend, Rick Cook (who had taunted me to come to the "dark side" of ultras) and yes, my coach, Bill Dwyer (who did the very first Sunmart in 1990.)

800 #1 - 4:38.28
Recovery -- 3:45.22
800 #2 - 4:29.04
Recovery -- 3:46.90
800 #3 - 4:37.84
Recovery -- 3:44.97
800 #4 - 4:35.76
Recovery -- 3:45.03
800 #5 - 4:29.63
Recovery -- 3:44.83
800 #6 - 4:25.32
Recovery -- 3:45.08
800 #7 - 4:27.45
Recovery -- 3:45.90
800 #8 - 4:27.44
Recovery -- 3:46.04
800 #9 - 4:37.55
Recovery -- 3:42.97
800 #10 - 4:29.73

800s #5 through #8, I had a very consistent runner that for the past couple of Yasso workouts had been hammering 4:20s. But as she was shadowing me going around the track, she told me that she really was targeting 4:30s. So the workout worked for the two of us.

After I did the first one, I asked Bill to confirm what Kim Hager had been communicating to other runners during the last workout - and that was to be running these "comfortably hard." I honestly was looking to try and do all of these in around 4:45. Once the first three came in the way that they did, I tried to take the first lap out fairly easy and then work on running as strong and as steady as I could in the last 200 meters.

I know what the numbers above mean.

However, my goal is to simply get to the start line in a little over two (2) weeks healthy and to have good weather.