McMullen Failure

Time: ~70 mins
Distance: 10.07 miles

W/u: 20:32 for 3.00 miles
W/o: 4 x mile, 2 x 400
C/d: 15:19 for 1.88 miles

Simmons took us out to a new location this afternoon that is a bit south of the city. We hit up the McMullen Greenway for some miles on a partially dirt/paved/bridged route. Most of the guys on the team were doing a pre-race workout consisting of 2 x mile, 2 x 400 but Oscar was doing 6 x mile that I was hoping to join. We got in our warm up and a few strides before commencing the effort on the first mile of the greenway.

Mile Splits:
4:39 (2:57), 4:48 (2:51), 4:59 (3:14), 5:05 (7:28)

400 Splits:
65.00 (5:35), 64.03

After the second mile interval I knew things were going downhill. My sickness is still troubling me and I guess it was a bit of a mistake to attempt this workout. However, I had already started the effort and was determined to get something in worthwhile. Oscar was running absolutely great which wasn't good for me. I was left in his wake on the second interval after about 600 meters. On the third interval Mike joined us and proceeded to take the pace out in 65 through 400m. I immediately backed off and thought about stopping at 800, 1000 and 1200 meters. I relaxed the last half of the mile and managed to split just under 5 mins. On my final interval I decided to run with one of the groups doing the pre-race. I felt much more comfortable going through 800 in 2:34 and finishing with a 2:31. The 400s at the end were just to get the legs turning over.

Oscar managed to average 4:40s or just a dip under and I think he finished with a 4:34.

The other news on the trail was that Fasil Bizuneh, who is coached by Simmons, was out doing his second big workout of the day. In the morning he ran a 2 mile warm up, 5 miles at 4:28 pace, 8 miles in 39:40ish and cooled down a mile. That's 16 miles total for the morning with some big chunks running really fast. Well, in the afternoon he came back out to McMullen to do the workout over. Yes, he was going to duplicate the effort from the morning to the best of his ability. I'm not sure what he ran the 5 miles hard in, but just as we were about to leave Simmons asked if anybody wanted to run 8 miles at 4:55 pace. There were no takers.