Threshold on the Runway

Threshold on the Runway

17 PAX launched in the cool 42 degree Tuesday morning air from the Ballantyne AO.  Off we went on a long expedition to explore more of this great area.

The THANG:

• Warm-up heading to the “Landing strip” – North Community House Rd.  Easy like Sunday morning pace at 9:30/mi, but 1.5mi was a long way to go to avoid “crossy road” (what the young kids call Frogger) over Johnston Rd.
• Heading out to the friendly bike lane shoulders of N. Community House Rd, we accomplished 4 x (5minute Threshold Pace w/ 2min jog) – find your Threshold Pace at http://runsmartproject.com/calculator.  Think of it as “Comfortably Hard” or the pace that you will likely try to run between obstacles at the Mud Run.
• 2 x 200meter sprint up slight hill w/ 200m jog recovery
• 10 minutes to go.  Blue Pill – make it back 1.0mi to the AO.  Red Pill – 1.5mi Acceleration Run back to AO – pick up the pace at each cone (dropping 5sec per 400m).

The Moleskin:

• Welcome to FNG Big Bird (Matt B)!
• All 17 PAX took the Daily Red Pill by posting at Swift, but all 17 even took the “Red Pill Option” at the end to push themselves to try to close 1.5mi as quickly as possible.  Even though most of us straggled into COT well after Bagpipers were heading to their cars, this was definitely the biggest group to come out and push themselves.
• Because this workout was over 2 days ago, YHC is having trouble recalling all of the events. What was top of mind is several guys sticking together to push each other on the longer runs, and it seemed like a Mud Run team was pushing it as a 4 man team.
• Mr. Bean flew by everyone on the 2nd hill sprint.  Haggis didn’t want to let this “south” Britain islander be the only one pushing it to the max and of course took up the challenge.  Of course both stopped too soon and lost the “race” to a unknown third.
• Acceleration Run over hilly ground is pretty hard to get right timewise.  A lot of variables to hit the splits right, so better to just focus on the effort.