Intervals

I really need to do a better job of keeping track of some of the lines that JT says during workouts.  He’s like a corny, one-man idiom machine.  I’m sure that after a while I would have enough for a proper coffee table book if not a made-for-TV movie.  

I’m not sure if he comes up with any of them himself or if they’re all borrowed from movies or old track coaches.  All of the quotes sound like they would be appropriate in any self-respecting youth football or baseball movie.  Whether he intends them to be funny or not, they always crack me up. 

The one that really stuck out for me yesterday was “this is the last lap.  This is where you give it everything you have left.  Tomorrow, you will look back on this lap and either be proud of yourself or ashamed that you could have done more.”

I’m paraphrasing, but you get the idea.  This line, like any other, was delivered with such significance that I couldn’t help but let out a snort of laughter before kicking myself up into a run for the last 200m interval.  For what it was worth and despite the corniness, I did put everything I had left into that last 200m because I did not want to go home feeling like a lazy bum.  All told, it had been a very solid workout and I wanted to end it on a high note.

W2:D2

At a regulation track: jog one lap (400m) at 11:00 minute pace for warm-up – walk one lap – drills (3 sets) – 6 200m intervals between 45 and 60 seconds

Drills: high knees (20m), butt kicks (20m), lunges (10m)

We rode our bikes to the track at a local high school, about 2 miles each way, and ran just at 2 miles cumulatively while we were at the track if my running app is to be believed.  My intervals ended up being about 50 seconds for 200m with a 200m recovery walk before starting the next round.  Some quick math shows that pace would be a 6:40 minute pace if I could keep it up for the whole 1600m.  Not too shabby in my book.  

JT did his 200m runs in 30 to 35 seconds (4:00 to 4:40 minute pace).  A few tens of meters into my run he would whiz past and then wait for me at the finish line.  He’s really very graceful when he gets running fast, and it’s a nice distraction from the huffing of my run.  In the short walks between intervals he was full of all sorts of facts about the markings on the track and what good times are for different sorts of races.  It seemed like he really enjoyed being back on a track even though he never explicitly said it. 

Overall, intervals really weren’t as bad as I had feared they would be.  The workout was hard, but not impossible.  It definitely wasn’t pretty, but that wasn’t the point.  I had never run intervals before and now feel comfortably smug for completing them. 

Today, we had a rest day.  We attended a picnic with some of JT’s co-workers.  The weather held up, so we played some touch football to get our blood pumping a bit – further evidence that rest days rarely involve actual resting.  It was fun and a nice change of pace from a scheduled workout.  

W2:D3

Rest (touch football)