Surprise, Surprise, Surprise, I did a workout exactly as I planned it at the Colby Track. Hip, Hip, Hooray!!!

Unfortunately, my Garmin 230 was not all that accurate, I would have loved to have had the times it claimed that I did, but when I am running on a track, it is pretty hard to not know the correct distances. I will get to that a little more later on.

The weather was actually nice, even though the humidity was above 90%, at least the temps cooperated being around 63*F, with a pretty good breeze coming up the back-stretch.

I did the warm-up lap and noticed that my mile lap buzzer went off about half-way down the homestretch. However, I didn’t really think a whole lot about it and got ready for my 1.0 mile time trial.

Since I wanted to use the Nike Zoom Fly SP again on the track and see if they performed better, since I have gotten more miles on them. I was hoping now that I have them broken in that they would be better than they were the first couple of times I wore them on the track.

The biggest thing with me on a mile time trial is keeping my focus on the back stretch of laps 3 and 4, so today I purposely didn’t run with music and seemed to focus more on maintaining a good pace. Having the breeze in my face on the back stretch made things a little more difficult, but it also meant that I didn’t have to battle against it on the homestretch, so that was a good thing.

As you can see I do slow down quite a bit and then speed back up again. Not the most consistent runner by any measure.

I do wish that I could run sub 6:00 minute for a mile, but at this point I am not in that kind of shape physically or mentally. Luckily I ran this mile time trial on the track so there ain’t a whole lot of question about the distances I ran. My real time for the mile was 6:59, which is still under my goal of 7:00, so I was pretty happy about that.

I have a feeling that I am missing an update to my Garmin 230 and will hook it up to the computer and get it updated.

After that I planned on doing 16 x 200, with 200 recoveries:

I did the workout!!!

It surprised me that I was able to be as consistent as I was. To do 16 x 200 and stay between 44 and 49 seconds (6:00 to 6:30 pace) for my fast intervals was pretty good for me.

While I am not sure of the pace that the Garmin gave me. I am confident of the times for each fast interval, since I timed each one with my Timex and recorded it in my Moleskine after the interval. Sometimes old-school can be a bit more accurate than the new fangled tech. 🙂

This was a good confidence builder, but now to work more on stamina and be able to run a sub 7:00 pace for longer distances…well at least for a 5K.

I did learn today that I have forgotten how to sprint, when I tried to pick it up my body felt all akimbo. Nothing felt coordinated and I started kicking my heels into my other leg and my arms were all over the place. It reminded me of all those finish line videos where runners are attempting to sprint at the finish. Not great form to say the least.

The reality is that

I was happy with the workout. Getting under 7:00 minutes for the first time this year for a mile time trial was satisfying, but now to reset the goal for a sub 6:50. Gotta keep moving things to keep moving forward.

The 16 x 200 at 6:00 to 6:30 paces was tough, but I was able to push through to the end of the workout, although the last 3 I did nurse a little left hamstring complaint being lodged, so I didn’t crank the last ones like I thought I would. Nothing serious, but it did remind me that I do have to be aware of what I am doing and be willing to shut it down if the discomfort had gotten any worse.

How did the Zoom Fly SP do? Better than I thought and now that they have broken in seem to be a lot better than they were before. I ran comfortably and felt fairy stable for such a high stack height.

So it was a good workout.

It also re-emphasized how inaccurate the GPS watches can be. My mile time trial was off by .07, which is a lot and made me feel a lot faster than I was actually running. Then the running total for 16 x 200 and recovery stuff was 5.3 and should have been 5.0 on the button, so the accuracy was definitely off considerably.

Which is not what we expect from the mythology of the accuracy of GPS watches. I know the distance on the Colby Track has been certified and trust those results a lot more than my GPS watch today.