You're faster than you think!

noon: 3 (22:00) NIST, shakeout

pm: Landon H.S. track

6 sets of drills + 4 x 800 w/ 400 rest

2:22.9, 2:22.0, 2:22.3, 2:22.1

Ice bath after the work out. 

This is sort of turning into my pre-race workout. This type of workout is endorsed by coaches like Brad Hudson (Ritz's coach) and Roy Benson for runners like me who are more strength oriented as opposed to speed oriented. Benson argues that strength runners should "freshen" rather than "sharpen". When you sharpen you cut back on mileage significantly and do short, fast intervals like 200s the week of the race. However, I have not had good success with this. Cutting back on mileage too much makes me feel tight and I actually think it is harder for me to recover from fast 200s. Benson and Hudson argue that strength runners should cut back the mileage only slightly and cut back on the intensity of the speed work. Hence, this is the plan I'm following, basically.... 90 miles for the last 4 weeks and 70 miles this week with longer intervals for the final speed session. I did a similar "taper" for the Broad Street 10 mile and had a great race... We'll see how this works out for the 5k this Sat.