Mile Repeats, Or: Repeatedly Getting Getting My Ass Kicked

 
  

Simply the hardest work out I have done since running the last ten K in Boston last April 16th.

It was wet day and I may have made a mistake by running an easy 8 K as a "warm-up". I also screwed the pooch by not following Jeff Galloway's coaching instructions well enough... I was supposed to to a 15 second walk break at 800 metres.

I was also supposed to do the first couple of miles repeats in 7:20 and then try to finish the last couple at 7:10...

Ha!!!!! Ha, Ha, Ha...

That was the sound of hysterical laughter.

The first three miles were in around 7:40. I gutted out two at 7:30 and then struggled and I mean struggled on a gargantuan scale to keep the last three under eight minutes.

Possibilities? Probablities? I don't want to make excuses.

I weigh 196 pounds.

I am 17% body fat, as measured.

Air temperature was two degrees above freezing.

It was raining.

The track was extrememly muddy and at the end it looked like I was running in rubber boots in stead of Asics Nimbus VIIIs.

The edge of the track was nearly circled with puddles, so I was a good three to six feet outside the edge of the track for significant periods.

Bottom line. Stop making excuses. Winners never whine.

The work out, the mile repeats, really hurt. I mean really hurt.

Far worse than any hill work out I have ever done. 1600 meters just seems to go on and on for forever and forever.

Patrick was a saint for being with me and sticking out my whining and sniveling in the cold drizzle that never let up and soaked us through our clothes and skin and to the bone.

I really have to lose fifteen pounds and seven percent body fat or I am never even going to get close to 3:30 in Boston, never mind 3:19...

Sunday was a real wake up call.

As of now, I am not fast enough or lean enough. But I have eleven weeks left to work some magic.

I only finished the work out because of Patrick's yeoman-like support and the fact that my Polar S625X Heart Rate Monitor never misses a beat...

Quite the wake-up call. Time to retrench and not get too discouraged. Maybe it was just a bad day...