Mile Repeats - 9/23

Redemption.

The day of rest was perfect. I woke up this morning and had very little, if any, residual soreness in my back from this past weekend, and my legs felt good again.

Todays workout was the last real speed workout on the training plan - being 4 x 1 mile repeats at a 5-10k pace. That was before I realized that the training plan ends a week before the race - so there is a good chance I'll do more speedwork next week - but we'll see. I decided to go for an average HR of 165-170, like the last set of mile repeats a few week ago. With the 880 speed work during the past couple weeks being at an average of 170, I figured I should be able to maintain the 165-170 rate a bit better this time around. However, once again - the average HR displayed is lower due to ramp up time. So when I say an average HR of 165-170, that generally corresponds to getting the HR up to that point and keeping it in that range, plus or minus a few bpm due to grade.

Also different today from previous mile repeats was that I took the full 2 minutes walk rest in between each repeat, as opposed to jogging in place until my HR got down to the 150 range. From looking at various training plans and doing more reading up on how plans are designed, it just seems like doing a walking rest is generally the preferred method in between repeats. In my case today, this got my HR down to the 115 range at the end of the 2 minute rest.

So, here we go:
Mile 1 Repeat: 7:41 Avg HR 161 end HR 167
Mile 2 Repeat: 7:43 Avg HR 163 end HR 173
Mile 3 Repeat: 7:50 Avg HR 164 end HR 167
Mile 4 Repeat: 8:04 Avg HR 164 end HR 170

Total Distance: 4.12 miles
Avg HR: 163
Average Pace: 7:36

Wow! What a difference! Looking at the numbers for my first set of mile repeats back on 8/27, I did three repeats, shooting for 170 bpm, and did them around the 9 min/mile pace. Barely a month later, a solid 80 seconds have been knocked off. Looking back at that days blog entry, I'm reminded how painful that speedwork was, and when I think about the subsequent days of speedwork in the following weeks - they each have gotten a little easier. I still find that they are the hardest workouts of the week (harder than the long runs, which surprised me), but I'm really surprised that only one true speed workout a week is making that much of a difference.