A.M: Big Workout. Warmed up with Ted and James (James turned around at 3). 38:57 at 5.02, 47:29 at the standard start of the Big Workout (2.5 turnaround of Provo River 5 Mile Tempo). After a good race at the Provo River Half I did some calculations and realized my chance of winning prize money at Great Salt Lake is sufficiently greater than 0 to merit a mini-taper. Plus a faster time could act as a confidence booster going into St. George, and a back-off week is a nice pre-caution against overtraining. So the plan was to do something mild of the Big Workout, skip one altogether on Thursday replacing it with an easy 10 in the morning, and then easy 10 Friday + only 2.5 with the kids in the evening. I thought 8x1000 at 5:20 pace with 400 recovery at 8:00 pace + a short tempo to the house at the end would do the job, so that is what I did. 1000s were actually 5/8 of a mile, which is about 5 meters longer, and 400s were actually quarters, which is about 2 meters longer. The workout is outlined in the chart below: Interval time
| Recovery time after (first 100)
| Recovery time after (quarter)
| Notes
| 3:54
| 29
| 1:52
| Missed 1000 mark, and went to 0.75
| 3:16
| 28
| 1:50
|
| 3:18
| 34
| 1:58
| Had 180 turn right after the intverval, lost 3 seconds.
| 3:13
| 30
| 1:55
|
| 3:16
| 28
| 1:50
|
| 2:36
| 31
| 1:52
| Ran 0.5 to use the credit from 0.75 first interval since I would have had to do 180 in the middle of the interval otherwise. First 100 was slow in the recovery because I had to do a 180 immediately after the interval.
| 3:58
| 29
| 1:52
| Ran 0.75 because there was no mark at 1000.
| 2:38
| 28
| 1:50
| Ran 0.5 to use the credit from 0.75 earlier. Launched into the final tempo immediately after the standard recovery.
|
Then ran 1.83 tempo home in 10:56 which is 5:58 pace average. I was actually going steady 5:52 on the good sections of the trail, but I had to cross Geneva Road, go under a couple of bridges, run uphill (0.5%) for a quarter mile, and deal with a few standard minor annoyances. This gave me 44:07 en route for 7.5 (5:53 average), which I consider a decent time for a fartlek, and a total time of 1:39:36 for 15.04. A little bit of bragging - I have filled out the chart above entirely by memory. I actually never use the split function of Garmin, only look at it, then calculate and remember the split. I can do it because a running time to me is more than just a number. It has a life, maybe even some color, feelings to go with it, maybe I remember somebody who ran that time on some distance, etc. P.M. 95 degrees. Ran to Benjamin's soccer practice. First mile, Benjamin and Jenny running, Julia in the double stroller, 9:18. Then ran with Jenny and Julia in the stroller and Benjamin on foot to Grandview, this gave him a total of 2.07 in 19:15. Then ran with Julia, 0.5 in 6:09 on grass, watched the rest of Benjamin's practice, Sarah came for the kids, and I ran 2.56 on the way home in 19:02.
| 