12x400? Really??

AM: 30 mins. ellip.
PM: 2.5 mile w/u + strides
12x400
2 mile c/d
Total: 7.5 miles

Oh, workout, how do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways. For starters, it's hard to get motivated to rip off some hard intervals when it's been pouring rain and gusting 30 mph winds for the past 36 hours. Damn you, Hurricane Ida! Throughout the day as I stared dubiously at the tropical storm-esque conditions outside, I maintained hope that Coach Simmons would come to his senses and postpone the workout until tomorrow. I was wrong.

Come 4:20pm (thanks for being late, Edgar), the entire group of us loaded up and headed out for...Uptown? Apparently there's a small gravel trail running through a neighborhood just past Uptown that Simmons had scouted out for us to use. The trail itself is only about 800m long, but it has a few offshoots that meander around behind a neighboring park; thus, you could complete at least a 2 mile warmup without covering the same territory a dozen times. The reason Simmons chose the trail was for it's consistent grade throughout; basically, no matter which end you started the interval on, the 400m stretch consisted of a steady downhill for 200 meters followed by an equal uphill for the next 200 meters. A bit unconventional for speed intervals, but seeing that the course in Evansville isn't flat we might as well get used to the undulating terrain.

By the time everyone had warmed up, stretched, strided and donned the neon glowstick bracelets that Simmons provided (just in case we wanted to go to a rave afterward), the sky was growing increasingly dark. Obviously the rain had a bit to do with that, but it was also already past 5pm. With the only lights coming from the adjacent neighborhood, we would soon be running in near-pitch darkness. Starting off the workout, I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of pace or feel. I'd hoped to sort of just tuck in behind Jess, Holly and Maraya and lock in to their pace. After clocking a 77 for the first interval, I knew that was just not realistic for me. My lungs and legs were already burning, and the 2:30 interval meant we had just over a minute's rest between each go. By the third one I knew I was unequivocally in over my head. Survival became my only goal, and I literally had to coach myself on each interval to just make it to the next one. Had I allowed myself to focus on the entirety of the remaining intervals, things would've gotten pretty bleak.

As far as pace goes, I'm not sure what I ran. Jenna was standing at the halfway point shouting out splits--mine consistently ranged from 37 to 39, but obviously that's on the downhill section--but the increasing darkness and the fact that I was wearing gloves made stopping and starting my watch impractical. Oh, and the wind and rain didn't help either. Not that it matters anyway; for me this was completely about effort. The final few intervals I was all the way in the hurt tank and felt like I was crawling on the uphill, but I managed to stick it out and complete the workout. Though I finished several of them with Holly, I never caught Maraya or Jess, but thankfully was never caught by anyone else either.

Overall, I suppose I'd consider this workout a success despite how terrible I felt. To say this was tougher than Saturday's race would be a gross understatement. However, I shouldn't have expected anything grand given that I haven't done this type of workout in forever. Not only have I been injured for two months, but even before that I'd stopped doing workouts since before my half-marathon in June. In fact, a quick glance at the blog shows the last time I did 12, 16, 20 or 25x400 was in March. Had I considered that before today's outing I would've probably had more realistic expectations about how this would turn out. Though I wouldn't say this workout was fun, I'm positive it will provide me with some tangible fitness gains come Nationals.