Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Everybody Yasso

Waking up early when it’s still dark out is somewhat normal on race day. It’s a little bit harder when you’re waking up early to go do speed work at the local track. This morning I made my second trip to the track to revisit my friend Speedwork. Amazingly I convinced neighbor Kim that it was a good idea that she went along as well.

After my intro last week I decided it was time to really do some speed work and did a set of Yassos or simply put 800 repeats. Today’s workout included 4 repeats with a 400 meter job recovery in between. Now four repeats isn’t a ton, but it’s a good starting point. Each week the number will increase until its time to taper. So my little four repeats went something like this.

1 – 3:26, not to bad a good steady pace
2 – 3:11, maybe a bit fast
3 – 3:11, ok but you’ll have slow down when we pump up the volume
4 – 3:09, yeah too fast. I must have been in a hurry to be done.

Even with my legs still a bit sore from my long run on Monday I managed a pretty good workout. Speed work is just one of those things that sounds good til you’re actually running and then you hate life for the next ½ hour, hour and then it’s all over. It’s a nice feeling to finish as you stop by Jamba Juice on the way to work and then spend the remainder of the day wondering why you’re tired. Oh that’s right, cause you’re crazy, I mean enthusiastic, enough to get up at 5 just so you can feel the burn. Yeah we endurance folk are a weird breed. A great breed with a few quirks. :)

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

speed work-i guess by definition-just feels horrible EVERY SINGLE TIME I DO IT. same with racing. I always contemplate WHY I even run at all. i always want to quit. tv, bed, and ice cream sounds way better...

3:28 PM  
Blogger MNFirefly said...

You ROCK!! I love Jamba Juice too. It's the perfect post-run refreshment.

10:56 PM  
Blogger KT said...

Speedwork is so painful and awful. But it soooo works.

3:04 PM  
Blogger Rice said...

I love speed work, before and after. I loathe it the entire time I’m doing it. I find it also helps to build mental toughness, too be able to keep running when every part of your body it defying the idea.

Cheers.

Rice.

4:11 PM  
Blogger Eric said...

Have you done Yasso's before? I'm thinking of doing Yasso's next year before my fall marathon.

I'm just curious as to your experience with using that workout.

6:47 AM  
Blogger Nic said...

I'm so glad you're doing Yassos. Because I haven't felt like doing them. So if you could just do a few more for me, well, that'd be GREAAAAAAT. :)

7:40 AM  

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