BroSpeed5 – the Last Prep

21 PAX at Swift used the last Tuesday before the BrOlympics 2.0 to sharpen the planned 1600m race pace and work on some endurance.

The THANG:

• 0500 – Warm-up mosey.
• 0515 – If that warm-up mosey wasn’t enough for you, or you were using that time to sleep in or flush the system a little more, then we’ll start as a group at 0515 and head towards the Hwy 521 Bridge Rushmore (last minute audible due to fog and not really wanting to turn in traffic).
• 0525 – Do some warm-up drills with the regular stuff.  Do some more warm-up drills with things like Bounding, Hamstring Kickers (?), Carioca, Lateral Bounding (like skipping sideways), and some weird North Korean military 2-step.
• 0535 – Start the intervals which are a mixture of Repetition Pace (let’s just call it our Brolympics Goal Pace) and Threshold Pace.  Both can be found at http://runsmartproject.com/calculator by entering a recent race result.
  • 200m at R-pace, recover 200m
  • 200m at R-pace, recover 200m
  • 5:00 at T-pace with a U-turn at 2:30 to finish back where you started, recover 400m (or about 2:30)
  • Repeato for 3 rounds total.
• Mosey back to COT at the Vine, many arriving late due to the Q’s choice of routes for the way back.

The Moleskin:

• The final 5:00 interval was to get us back to the Vine on time.  As MT said in COT, there were a lot of PAX out there today that chose the longer route (and both routes were uphill as we found out) to perhaps push themselves that extra few minutes.
• As the final tune-up for the BrOlympics 1600m that was the focus of this past training cycle, YHC wanted to wait until ALL of the results were in before typing out this Backblast.  Thank you for your patience.    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
• At the Brolympics on Saturday, YHC was a bit surprised that only 12 of the Swift PAX participating at least once in this training cycle were able to compete in the 1600m.  Several PAX have been VERY consistent in this last 5 weeks, but weren’t able to toe the line.  But congrats go to Bunker, Woodson, Tuck, Fire Hazard, Doc McStuffins, Haggis, Goonie, Purell, Soft Pretzel, and Citgo for toeing the line to see what they were made of.  Some PAX set PRs, some were perhaps disappointed, but you guys did the work and got to prove to yourselves that you can handle the mental and physical of a race effort.
• For those PAX not able to make the Brolympics 1600m that day due to various reasons – some of which included group training runs in the mountains for other events, volunteering and serving your fellow PAX on that day, or other valid commitments, YHC just wants you to know that there is no reason you CAN’T race.  For those PAX that set PRs on Saturday, they know they have a new benchmark in training.  For those that didn’t set PRs on Saturday, they know there is something for them to figure out with the next training cycle or racing for next time, or perhaps there is a new more realistic goal to set.  For those PAX who just didn’t think they had it and didn’t toe the line, make this next training cycle your most consistent and honest.  We’ll have more opportunities to “time trial” with the new Swift format (see below), and the next is May 29th.  If you have a race on the calendar between now and then, make that your time trial.  But don’t let your fear, worry, or doubt ever prevent you from testing yourself again.  You put in the work, and now’s the time to see what you can get out of it.
• Here is an analysis from PAX who ran the 1600m on Saturday and did the Swift training leading up to it.  Many of you did these same workouts, but either didn’t have the data (Woodson, Goonie) because you can’t find a Lap button, or YHC didn’t have the time to get through everyone’s results.  Open the full file to check out any formulas used to evaluate results, and there is some other data as well.  The goal was to look at the Repetition Pace (which is just about 1 mile / 1600m race pace) from each of the various workouts we did over the 5 weeks and then how those translated into race results.
  • Full file is: http://goo.gl/BcwFh9
  • For some, you’ll see they could have done a little better in the race.
  • For others, you’ll see you fading during a workout (look into the details, especially at the longer intervals that get separated out, like the 800m, 2:00, and 5:00 intervals).  You perhaps can correlate that to how you were feeling that day, when you know you were pushing harder than you needed to, when you were just unsure of a goal and backed off, or you had a different “A” race you competed in or were training for.
  • It’s data, and you can look at it 5 different ways to tell you different things.  However, if you are showing up to a workout, pushing the Start button on your watch, using your Lap button (like Erector, Fletch, and Mario did this month), programming the workout, using Heart Rate, or something else, it’s good to look back and look at trends.

Announcements:

• RunJenRun 5K at SouthPark this Saturday.
• Swift schedule for March:
  • 1st week of the Month = Time-based intervals
  • 2nd week of the Month = Hill repeats
  • 3rd week of the Month = Distance-based intervals
  • 4th week of the Month = Form-drills and Sprints
  • 5th week of the Month = TIME TRIAL (1st month with 5 Tuesdays is May)
• PreBlast for tomorrow = 2/1/:30 through Ballantyne Country Club (counter-clockwise)