25x300

AM: 3 mile w/u + strides
Target: 25x300m w/1 min. rest; hammer #15, 20, 25
Actual: #1-14: 55s; #15: 52; #16-19: 54, 55, 54, 54; #20: 52; #21-24: 53, 54, 53, 53; #25: 50
1 mile c/d
Total: 10 miles
PM: 25 mins. pool

I came into this workout knowing that it would be my last hard track session before Nationals. Although short intervals are not typically my forte, I really wanted to nail this. I wouldn't have Tanya to help me with pacing (she worked out last night, but I couldn't due to my summer class starting), but Maraya was planning to do 12x300 at the same time. Her workout would be much faster than mine (she was shooting for 50-52s, while I was hoping to hit 55s), but I knew it would help just to have someone else to start with.

From the first interval, this felt hard. Have I mentioned I'm no good at short distances? I kept reminding myself that it usually takes a while for me to find my groove in this type of workout, so I tried to push all the negative thoughts out of my head. Still, I was a bit discouraged for the first five or ten. It didn't help that the rest felt incredibly short; we barely had enough time to jog the remaining 100 meters and catch a few quick breaths before taking off again. (Of course, the positive side is that this makes the workout go by fairly quickly, but who's thinking of positives in the heat of the moment??)

So there I was, feeling crappy, when all of the sudden something strange happened: halfway through the workout, I began to feel better. Like, a lot better. Like a completely different person than the one who started 12 intervals earlier. Instead of being cautious and hesitant, I found myself relaxing and opening up my stride from the gun. I also noticed that my breathing in between intervals was much calmer than at the beginning as well. Sure enough, as my body began to come around, my times began to drop slightly. With five laps to go, I was ready to really start pushing. I hammered #20 in 52, then came back in 53. This confused Coach Simmons, who was running himself ragged trying to time four different workouts at once. Our mini-convo as I jogged down the backstretch went like this:

SS: Okay, five to go!
MN: Um, no, I only have four.
SS: Really? You were supposed to hammer 20, not 21.
MN: I did. I ran 52 on #20.
SS: But you just came back in 53. That's pretty legit. You sure there's only four left?
MN: Absolutely, positively sure.

I finished the final few intervals strong, running close to all out on the last one but still staying controlled. Mechanically I felt more efficient than I have in a long time (which isn't saying a whole lot, since I have the worst form in the entire world). Both Simmons and Jenna commented on how far I've come physiologically in the past few months, which was pretty cool to hear. All in all, for a workout that started with me feeling so poorly, this turned into one of my most solid runs in the past few weeks.