Peaks of Speed on Flat Rushmore

Peaks of Speed on Flat Rushmore

This morning in Ballantyne 15 Swift PAX found some Speed in a storage locker, paid a fair price, and will hopefully reap rewards from their efforts in about 3 1/2 weeks at the Joe Davis Run.

The THANG:

• 0500 – Early crew gets in about 1.3mi.  Was it me, or was that brisker than normal?  Only adventure was that it was not the normal route, perhaps just in reverse.
• 0515 – Grab the rest of the crew and head out around the Bull Ring to Rushmore Dr – otherwise known as both a stout hill and a long straightaway in the Ballantyne Corporate Park.  Today, we avoided most of the hill.  Continue warm-up with some dynamic RunCoach inspired (YHC will not take credit for these) drills.
• 0530 – Start the workout of:
  • 5minutes at Interval Pace, 4min jog recovery (5 minutes done as 2:30 out, turn, 2:30 back)
  • 5minutes at Interval Pace, 4min jog recovery
  • 5minutes at Interval Pace, 4min jog recovery
  • 3minutes at Interval Pace, 2min jog recovery
  • 3minutes at Interval Pace, 2min jog recovery
  • Head to the Bull Ring and point towards COT for one last 3minutes at Interval Pace
  • Total of 24 minutes of intervals at a 2 mile race pace – likely at least a 5K worth of speed for most of the PAX
• 0610 – Regroup and we’re officially done, but let’s jog until FireHazard’s watch (he was in the early crew) ticks from 7.99 to 8.0.  Back to the Vine at 0615.

The Moleskin:

• How quickly the PAX forget the workouts like this:
  • Last week – 2/1/30 * 5 at the same pace = 17.5minutes of intervals
  • December 2nd – 4 minute intervals * 5 = 20minutes of intervals
  • 11/3 – 5,4,4,3,3 = 22 minutes of intervals
• OK, so this run was both 6 intervals and 2 minutes longer than we had done before.  So why did the 3minute intervals seem so long?  There’s something about the out & back / turnaround, other than trying not to blow out a knee on the turn, that’s harder.  You know exactly how far you have to run, and when it’s mostly on a straightaway, there’s no hiding from the finish.
• VO2Max is about effort if you don’t have a good measure like Lap pace (pace for that Interval) on your watch / device.  It should be “Hard”, but you should not by tying up with Lactic Acid building up.  Then, you know that you are going anaerobic and beyond the VO2Max level.  5minutes (1 mile for some, or at least 1200m for most) is the longest time at this speed.  We’ll not revisit this Interval distance (at this speed) for a while, but don’t get too comfortable!
• Flat Rushmore – we haven’t done really long intervals here before (max was 800m, and that involved the hill), so it was good to find that there was enough flat that it shouldn’t affect the effort.  YHC’s Strava results for the 5min showed a -8 foot drop on the “out” and a 7 foot gain on the way back.  Looks close enough!
• If you have a Lap button on your Fitness watch that’s recording the workout, unfortunately the Smartphone based apps I have seen don’t allow a manual Lap, you should use it to separate the “work” interval from the “recovery” interval.  Helps to be able to look at the watch mid-interval and see what your “Lap” pace is (pace of the interval you are running), or at least see on the results later that you are hitting your target paces.  Unfortunately, if you’re not a Strava user, you can’t see what’s being talking about here: https://www.strava.com/activities/450543315/laps.  You’ll only see Strava’s auto-generated Mile Splits (which is the same thing you would see if using the Smartphone app).  However, Garmin also takes the data, and you should be able to see what’s been talked about here (scroll down and click the Splits tab): https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/983489722 (from a program that had a 2:30 interval, 2:30 interval, and 4min recovery).
• If you ever want a Fitness Watch recommendation for Christmas or how to program / sync the one you have, just ask.  For recommendations, you can also check out http://dcrainmaker.com
• It was great to see one of the originals of DevilsTurn, SwissMiss, as a Swift FNG today.  He sure has some a long way from those mornings at McAlpine Greenway, and we hope you got your money’s worth in your travel to the AO today!
• Dolphin rediscovered that @F3SOB has a running workout!  Not a problem for this PAX, and still coming back strong to take on whatever lies down the road.  Just don’t talk to Honeybee, who apparently has marathon schedule that rivals Dean Karnazes 52 in 52 weeks.
• Mario has either been hanging around vets like Uncle (notorious Sandbagger) or he just doesn’t know how hard to push his young man body.  He was cranking on that last interval today, did the same last week, and perhaps that’s just how it always happens.  YHC knows who would run anchor on a relay team…
• Haggis and Frasier were missed from post 26.2 recovery over the weekend, but Honeybee did his best to channel both of them.  In sound (swishing shorts) and in brutal effort (“come on [grunt]”).
• Wingman tells us that Champagne was actually at Swift today.  Still can’t trust that one because YHC didn’t hear too many sarcastic remarks while explaining the workout.
• If in fact the numbers were correct, let’s note that there were 15 at Swift at 12 at Bagpipe.  Let’s also acknowledge this was still short of FastTwitch’s 18.  #stillawaystogo
• If you guys didn’t show up today, I’d still run this thing on my own.  It would be a little lonely, so thanks for the opportunity to train with you guys.  Always hard, and always worth it.

Announcements:

• Thursday 12/17 – JoeDavisRun Preview run at the course.  @0515 – Laces Out (Walter Elisha Park) – Join Sir Topham Hatt for a preview run of the Joe Davis Race course, during the normal Laces Out workout this week.
• Friday 12/18 – Join YHC at 0515 at South Charlotte Middle School (site of MountainGoat) for the recommended Threshold Pace training for this week = 15min Threshold Pace, 3min Rest, 10min Threshold Pace, 2min Rest, 5min Threshold Pace.  Might take nominations for moving this to the 4 Mile Creek Greenway if enough interested.
• Here’s another recommended Speed workout for the weekend – Race (5K or 10K) or the 4×200,2×400,800,2×400,4×200 R-pace pyramid (equal distance recoveries after each, all are in meters).