Need for Speed

Perhaps a sad day when 5 minute miles is considered speed work, but there it is.  Maybe three years ago halfway through an awful track session with Steve O and Richard Mosley I vowed to never set foot on a track again so when the idea of doing mile repeats sprang into my head earlier in the week I should have gotten my head checked out.  The track has always been the bane of my existence as a runner; I can count on one hand the number of good sessions i've had, and on no hands how many i've enjoyed. So, why on earth would I do it now, when i'm training for a 50mi race and an interim marathon?  Truth is, its exclusively for the marathon. I felt like I wouldn't have quite enough speed for the Edmonton marathon, which was maybe the case, but for the Victoria marathon this is definitely the case. I'll just say it: I want to run in the neighbourhood of 2:25 and thats going to require an ability to run at a decent clip. Thats 5:32/mi. I firmly believe you have to do some amount of work substantially below this pace in order to be capable of running it for a long period. That said, doing my original plan of 20-25km over and under race pace by maybe 5 seconds/km(8s/mi) wasn't really going to be as much of a differential as i'd like, hence the repeat miles.


It was a bit of gamble to allot a workout day for repeat miles because of the distinct possibility of getting pissed off and quitting halfway through, but in the end it worked out well. Heading down to the track at Oak Bay Secondary with my flats and water bottle in hand I was actually feeling ok about the whole prospect, planning to do 6 reps, 8 if I felt great. The aim would be to run 5mins for each 1600m(9meters short of a mile). Having no idea what kind of speed i'd have in my legs I felt this to be a reasonable expectation and wouldn't be surprised to be running as slow as 5:10.  So off I went in my T5s cruising around at 75 second laps to come in at 4:59.6 for the first one, feeling pretty good. As my track legs started coming back to me I was able to relax a bit and cruise through without killing myself to 4:59.4, 5:00.2. 4:58.9, 4:59.3, and 4:56.3.  All off 3 mins rest. Success! I didn't opt to do any more because after each one my left IT band/hip would tighten up making the first turn pretty uncomfortable, AND I peeled off a decent track workout!  Stoked. I realize 5 minute miles is not fast by any stretch of the meaning, but to be able to step on the track and do that workout was awesome and affirmed that doing hill repeats is every bit as good as track work to get fast and strong. Doing the actual fast paced work however is incredibly important to get the nerves and muscles firing, improving your efficiency at a quicker pace. In addition to this i'm doing some 'pick-ups' during my easy runs to get the legs moving on a regular basis.


In other news, alluded to earlier, my IT band/hip is causing me some grief. I can't really pin down the cause but it's likely the transition to running on pavement a lot more and thus not in my low-rise trail shoes, and the increased volume and consistency, as well as I suppose a lot more sitting around reading for school. I've been doing a couple yoga sessions a week but i'm going to have to probably add yet another and a couple of tougher poses directed at strengthening the stabilizers around the knee and hip. I really don't want any soreness going into the long run next weekend. That's about all for now. Two solid weeks in the books!