Preblast for Week 6 of MP-10

Overview

We’ll launch at 0515 from the NEW Ballantyne Corporate Park parking area across from Duckworths and in front of the OrthoCarolina Urgent Care Ballantyne. We’ll be running on familiar roads that have bike lanes and sidewalks, but there are cars and other hazards so you should wear reflective/visibility gear and have a headlamp or flashlight.

We’re going to shift down in the Length of the Interval this week, but we’re also decreasing the rest to hopefully bring new levels of Fitness. These intervals will still be run at “MP-10”. This means at your goal marathon pace, minus 10 seconds per mile. If your goal marathon pace is 8:00/mile then your goal pace for this workout would be 7:50 per mile.

Don’t have a goal marathon pace? Well then use this Race Calculator (click for link). Enter a recent race effort (Distance, Finishing Time), click Calculate, go to the Equivalent tab and look at Pace/Mi on the row for Marathon.

The Plan

(OPTIONAL) 0445 – meet Frasier and Bunker to start the workout early and get in more intervals
(OPTIONAL) 0500 – getting extra warm-up
MAIN GROUP START @ 0515 – – run up Ballantyne Commons to Metlife
0525 – start warm-up drills making our way through the parking roads down to the corner of North Community House & Ballantyne Commons stoplight.
0530 – Start the Intervals of 7 minutes at MP-10, 2 minutes jog recovery and regroup. We will complete 4 Intervals with an Optional 5th.
- For some PAX, these will be a little over 1mi, for others, a little less than 1mi. The goal is to regroup to the Six each time and start each MP-10 interval together.
- We will be running along North Community House from the Ballantyne Commons stoplight to the Endhaven stoplight. We will be starting each Interval at one of those intersections. If you don’t make it to the next intersection for the Interval + Recovery, then U-turn and head the opposite direction each 9 minutes.
0606 – Head back to COT. This is also a decision point for a 5th Interval or more Cooldown. The Q and others will cover the Six to make sure everyone is on the way back. If you leave North Community House prior to 0606, please tell someone.
0615 – COT

Extra Notes

More on Marathon Pace minus 10 (“MP-10”). If you’ve been a Swift regular and recall Threshold Pace (aka T-pace, aka Comfortably Hard, aka Lactate Threshold), MP-10 ends up being slower than Threshold and somewhere near half the difference to Marathon goal pace.

Here are some other thoughts about the target effort for this MP-10 Strength workout, “So, usually through a combination of running too fast and not maximizing the recovery jog, they get to the 3rd or 4th one and realize they’ve dug a hole they can’t get out of. Remember, speed work usually brings acute discomfort. It’s usually an eye opener from the get go. Strength workouts should sneak up on you. The same effort for the last few should feel fairly hard compared to the first one or two. That’s when you’ve done it right- think slow cooker. You are slowly building that lactic feeling. Never fully recovering from the repeat prior and letting the discomfort slowly add to each successive repeat.“

Preblast for Week 6 of MP-10