Track workout @ East High. Today was was not a "speed" workout in the true sense, but it was a long workout that tested threshold stamina, endurance and attention to form. Bud James, the Chicago coach who designed my marathon plan, described it as an "important workout for the mind as well as for the body." Here's the design of this ladder workout: 1 mile, 1200m, 800m, 600m, 400m with 400m jog recovery between every interval. Three sets of this. All done at 6 minute pace. So, not fast but pretty long. I started with a mile warmup and then 4 x 100m strides. For the first mile, I went out slow, as usual: 6:10. After that, I didn't fall off 6min pace. Most of my splits were at 87 seconds or so. It would take me too long to write all the splits for every interval, but here's what I did on the second set: Mile: 5:55 1200: 4:28 800: 2:57 600: 2:13 400: 1:27 I did a one mile cool down after the third set. The biggest challenge in the workout for me was finishing the 400, jogging easy, and then digging back in for the mile. The pace was not a problem, it was more a matter of breaking down the workout into individual laps instead of thinking about the length of the workout as a whole. That approach seemed to work today. | 