Track workout this morning
I have led interval workouts on Wednesday mornings for a couple of months now with folks from the Yates Y. In the past, we would meet up at Memorial Park shortly after 6 am to run laps around the park. Memorial Park is a mile from the Y, so it was convenient and allowed for a nice warm-up and cool-down. Running around the park wasn't the greatest though. The lap around the park was a little under 400m, so I had to provide decoder spreadsheets to determine actual pace. Because it was short and pacing was hard to nail, I also never included workouts that were longer than approximately 800m. Plus, the lighting was terrible, and the concrete surface was uneven and unforgiving to the legs.
Today was different. Jay and I convinced everyone to meet us at the Lee High School track, about 2.5 miles from the Y. We were able to park in the parking lot of my parent's dry cleaners, 3 doors down from the school. Everyone met up shortly after 6 am and did a couple of warm-up laps around the track. Then it was time for a good interval session.
First we did a 1600 at 8k pace, followed by an 800 at 5k pace, and then wrapped it up with a 600-400-200 at mile pace. A solid effort was exerted by everyone. Jay sandbagged and said his legs were feeling heavy. Well, they were heavy fast legs. He was moving pretty good. After the intervals, Jay and I ran a cool down mile around Willowbranch Park.
Doing the speed session at Lee was great. It was dark when we arrived, but became lighter as the session progressed. There was quite a bit of humidity, but the temperature was actually pretty mild. I had a good session, doing the mile in 6:37. That's a little faster than I want to do the Harpoon Brewery 5-miler, but it didn't feel super hard. I did the 800 in 3:09, and then did the 600 at a 6:00/mile pace. I picked up the pace incrementally for the 400 and 200. I did the 400 at 5:44 pace and the 200 at 4:40. Yeah, I'd be able to sustain that for a mile. Sha-right.
Good session. Thanks to everyone for coming out. Wednesday morning sessions on a real track will be terrific.