Another Workout? Why Not.

AM: 3 mile w/u
Target: Caitlin's workout of 10 mins., 8, 6, 4, 2, 1 w/half rest
Actual: 10 (5:54 through mile); 8 (5:49); 6 (5:33)
2+ mile c/d
Total: 10 miles

"Wait a minute," you're telling yourself. "Didn't she just work out yesterday?" Why yes, loyal readers, yes I did. But I couldn't very well leave Caitlin and Pezz to their lonesome for this morning's pre-dawn interval session at McAlpine, now could I? So Jordan and I woke up at 5ish and were soon watching Felix's (his Jetta's) headlights illuminate our path toward Old Bell. My legs, quads in particular, were feeling heavy as bricks after yesterday's hill session, and any sort of quick movement sent waves of soreness throughout my lower body. To say I wasn't in prime workout condition would be an understatement.

However, maybe that's my new training strategy. Though I've never really practiced this philosophy before, there is something to be said for working out on back-to-back days and conditioning the body to push through on tired legs. I could see this being particularly beneficial for marathon training, for obvious reasons. So while I'm not saying I'll be making plans to do this every week, I can certainly see the potential benefits.

After a few miles of warming up and grabbing some water it was time to get down to business. As he always does, Jordan gamely joined us ladies as both a pacesetter and bodyguard. We knew the 10-minute segment would feel the longest (probably because, you know, it actually was the longest) but we also hoped it would feel the most relaxed. Sure enough, we came through the mile marker at a pace that felt not much faster than jogging. It's good to know that sub-6 feels this easy on tired legs; I can only hope I'll be able to say the same when I race the 10-miler in October. After a lengthy rest, the eight-minute segment didn't feel much more difficult. It was the six-minuter that really put me over the top. As soon as we started I could feel myself crossing the threshold from comfortable to strained, and I knew that my post-workout legs were finally begging for mercy. Even when Caitlin offered to skip the four-minute segment I still declined to join them for the final few minutes. Instead I jogged around at a much more leisurely pace and tried to stretch out a bit. Simply put, I was toasted.

But, as I said before, that was kind of the point. Further, looking back at the last time we did a similar workout, you can see that our pace today was faster even though we didn't have the first 10-minute interval last time. So today we were running faster for longer periods of time. Considering that the weather was absolutely disgusting this morning--we all agreed it felt exceptionally humid, and that's really saying something given what we're used to--that's exactly the kind of progress we were looking for. Solid work by everyone involved.