Playing Queen Maker

Time: 68:28
Distance: 10.14 miles

W/u: 23:23 for 3.06 miles
W/o: 5 mile predator rabbit
C/d: 16:28 for 2.07 miles

While some of the Queens team was racing at the Duke Invite, others were at McAlpine for some weekend miles. However, there was a core group of females who would be running a pretty legit workout. Pezz, Tanya, Meagan and Jenna were all gearing up for their respective workouts. Pezz was running a 4 mile predator run, Meagan and Tanya were doing 5 miles and Jenna, who is just getting back the training buzz, was hoping to go 4 miles.

Since this week has been pretty light in terms of total miles, I decided to play Queen Maker by pace setting the ladies. The goal was to start at 6:00 pace and drop down each mile. Tanya had ambitions of running 5:20 for the last mile. Meagan was hoping to hang on to the pace for as long as possible.

It was up to me to keep things controlled early on and gradually increase the effort as smoothly as possible. I've helped out Meagan many times, but wasn't sure how Pezz or Tanya would respond.

Splits:
5:57, 5:47, 5:36, 5:34, 5:37 for 28:37 total and 5.01 miles.

Early on I could tell Meagan was feeling good because she was running up on my shoulder. Over the second mile, I dropped the pace about 10 seconds, which is what the ladies agreed to before the workout. Pezz and Tanya ran with me during mile three and Meagan was a bit off the pace. Tanya's breathing sounded good until about 1.5 miles to go when her recent wheezing troubles started on a much lesser scale.

At four miles, Sean jumped in to help out during the final mile. I dropped off to see how Meagan was doing and was going to run with her to finish out the workout. However, just as I was starting to make my way back she stopped at the start of the Footlocker course (4 miles). I quickly jumped back around and chased down Tanya and Sean. She was running tough, but struggling. Her form slowly started to deteriorate as she arched her back and began to over-stride. Tanya still managed to hang on to the pace and finished well, but still about 100 meters from 5:20 pace.

Meagan's workout wasn't anything special as a week prior she ran faster at the Shamrock 4 Miler. See her recap for more.

I felt fine throughout. Hopefully I helped a bit.