Putting in Work

Time: 93:09
Distance: 15 miles

Last night Kristi, Coleman, Scotty D, Skolnick, Spenis and a few others made a trip up to OKC to visit McNellie's Public House. The majority of us took advantage of the $3 burgers and sample a variety of beers. The most interesting was definitely the Leinenkugal Sunset Wheat which tasted a bit like Fruity Pebbles or Trix. It had a flowery sweet smell but not an overly sweet taste that is hard to describe. The only real description that could capture the flavor brought back memories of sugary cereals from our childhoods.

In the morning Scotty and I met up along Brooks St. and made our way to the corner of Pickard and Imhoff. I got in a warmup of 27:28 and a few strides before our workout. We wanted to do something a little different that invovled a bit of tempoing and a bit of faster, more 5k oriented work.

Target: 2.5 mile tempo, 2 x mile, 2.5 mile tempo
Splits: 5:25, 1:24, 5:32, 1:23 for 13:45 after 2.5 miles.
(1:01 rest)
5:01 for a mile north on Pickard
(1:02 rest)
5:00 for a mile south on Pickard
(1:06 rest)
5:34, 1:22, 5:21, 1:26 for 13:43 after 2.5 miles and 40:43 total (including rest)

I'm pleased with the outcome of this workout. Overall I felt relatively relaxed on the first mini-tempo running 5:30 pace. The purpose was to get the legs a bit tired before the 2 hard mile efforts. I was definitely pushing the first mile up Pickard and at times felt like I was going to trip over my own feet. My backstride was a little off but I managed to run close to 5:00 (originally I was hoping to run 5:05-5:10, and then run the second faster). Since the goal was to run the second mile faster I knew I was going to have to use the slight downhill to my advantage. I came through the first half as relaxed as possible in 2:36 and threw in a little surge to hit the line in 5:00. Afterwards I was pretty beat but still had to get through the last tempo. The goal for the second tempo was to run in a rhythm with tired legs. Scotty D hit the front after about 1200 meters and started grinding the pace. I was being towed along running south on Berry just hoping to make it to Imhoff still in contact. I was surprised to see that we ran the southern mile in 5:21 despite feeling like death. While neither of us felt great, we most certainly felt better than the possum that seemed to be near death. Read about it in Scotty's log.

Scotty and I jogged back slowly through campus and I headed home with a cooldown of 28:05.