Negative Split at McAlpine

I'm debating using the blog as my running log, mirroring the format that Meagan Nedlo and Jordan Kinley showcase in their respective blogs. However, I am weary to do this because I'm afraid that my blog would get really boring since I don't have much humor in my writing. If anyone has any suggestions or opinions for one way or the other, let me know!

Until I make a decision, I'll maintain the potpourri posts that cover any topic from workouts, long runs, baseball, and family vacations. Today's theme: a workout.

During my Monday morning run, Meagan and I figured out our training schedules for the week. Specifically, I switched up my Tuesday workout to sync up with Meagan's workout outlined in her training plan that she recently received from her coach. In exchange, she swapped her 2x3 mile workout for a 3x2 mile workout with me on Thursday. Since we seem to work out really well together, it makes most sense for the two of us to blend our respective training plans into a Mark Hadley / Scott Simmons hybrid plan.

With that being said, I woke up Tuesday morning at 519am to Katy Pery's "California Girls" and completed the necessary pre-workout tasks that would ensure I felt as awesome as possible during the 800m repeats. John was supposed to meet the early group at 530am, but I could tell when I went upstairs that he hadn't even awakened yet. He would eventually get up and make his way to McAlpine by 615am, which is still awesome because he rarely joins the early morning workouts.

Following our standard pattern, I parked at the Main entrance and met one of our smallest workout groups yet - just Meagan and Thomas - halfway on the McAlpine bike path. We warmed up by scoping out each and every 800m stretch between the 1.75 and .25 marker, eventually deciding that the stretch between .75 and 1.25 marks featured the best footing / solid terrain. Keep in mind that this terrain was much more difficult to run on compared to the asphault at the Dilworth Speed Loop that we ran on two weeks ago.

After 27 minutes of warmup, we stashed our water bottles full of Nuun next to the mile marker post and I did a couple of light strides and other drills. A couple minutes later, we toed the imaginary starting line, acknowledged the pain we were going to endure telepathically, and sprinted off into the distance.

The first repeat felt terrible, but Meagan reminded me afterwards that the first one always does. Once we got into the groove, Meagan, Thomas, and I created a tight pack for the first four intervals and maintained 242-243. For the second set, we managed to run faster than the first set, getting a nice negative split into the books. For 5 and 6, we pushed too hard for the first half, so we decided to make a conscious effort to go out more controlled on intervals 7 and 8. It's amazing how those intervals felt so much better, even though we were posting the exact same times for our splits. Pretty cool that just by convincing ourselves that we were going easier made our bodies feel lighter.

243 (200)
243 (200)
242 (200)
242 (159)
240 (159)
241 (229)
240 (229)
239

Compared to the 6x800m workout Meagan and I did two weeks ago, this felt much more strenuous and difficult, most likely due to the change in terrain. Overall, we, the three amigos, left feeling satisfied with our times and completed our cool downs together until we had to part ways towards our cars. I luckily managed to find John en route back to the Main entrance so we got to catch up on our respective workouts. It was a nice treat to run with him for a couple of minutes. We picked up Billy along the way, who misinterpreted a 5k workout and crafted it into a marathon workout by absoluting dominating it.