4x400s

Buzz and Ron have been throwing in some speedwork on Thursday, so I decided to join them yesterday for the first time, along with Gavin and Jeremy. The trail out at the Gilruth Center here at work is marked every quarter-mile and has one particularly straight section between the 1 and 1 1/4 markers that's good for speedwork. We ran out to the 1 1/2 mark and then back to 1 for a two mile warmup at ~11:00 pace, then everyone split off to do 400 repeats. I ran from the 1 to 1 1/4 markers, then walked back. Everyone else was jogging the recovery stretch, but I decided I'd rather work up to that point.

I can run at pretty decent speed over short stretches, but I'm not actually very good at judging my pace. I did ok yesterday, doing 4x400 repeats in 2:08, 2:00, 1:56, and 2:05. After each, I walked back the 400 meters at a brisk pace such that each set of speed/recovery lasted 6 minutes -- ~2 minutes running, ~4 minutes walking recovery. For the last repeat I ran from 1 to 3/4 markers and then slowly jogged the 3/4 mile back to the parking lot.

All in all, the workout felt pretty good. Total distance covered including warmup, speed/recovery bits, and cooldown jog was 4.5 miles in just under an hour. Next week I'd like to up the count to 5 repeats. As long as I walk the recovery portion, I feel like I could do a lot more repeats; walking for 400 meters is plenty of time for my heart rate to drop by ~40 bpm and get back to a normal breathing/talking pattern. So in two weeks I'll start jogging recovery instead of walking.

The thought also occurred to me that 400 meter repeats, because they're not done at a full sprint but rather at just below that, are probably great soccer training as well. I find that my performance during a soccer game is directly to related to how "in soccer shape" I am, which is basically how quickly I can recover after having almost sprinted down the field or been juking back and forth defending someone. The quicker I can recover, the quicker I can be ready to get back into position and defend again.

I haven't really done any research on what type of speed workout is best for what I want to accomplish, so I should do that. I think my next goal is to run a sub-hour 10K. I've only done a sub-30:00 5K a couple times, and so the sub-hour 10K will be a significant challenge. I don't know how possible it is without some serious training time, so it may be a goal that I have to put off until next fall/winter, but we'll see.