Mile Repeats at McAlpine

Goal:
5 x 1600 w 400m jog


Actual:
29 minute warmup for ~3.7 miles
5xmile at 5:47, 5:34, 5:33, 5:29, 5:31
18 minute cool down for ~2.3 miles for 11.75 miles total
This was definitely an early morning workout at McAlpine..5:40AM.  I pulled up to the Old Bell Parking lot to find Billy and Stephen Spada already waiting for me.  All pride in what I thought was my early arrival was immediately dashed.  After an attempt to parallel park in a tight spot, I decided it was too early to try to master that one.  I found out as I jogged up to the guys that Billy did the exact same thing and failed as well.  Spada didn't miss a beat and took a moment to make fun of our poor early morning driving abilities. 

Without any head lamps, we made our way through the washed out trail and stumbled over the ruts and divets that the torrential downpour caused.  Around the lake, we were able to link up with the miner's runners but we soon bid them farewall as we made our way to the starting line of the XC course.  Since the three of us had come to ill prepared for the darkness, we had to do our first interval on the first mile of the course.  Then we jogged over to the 3rd mile of the course to finish the rest of the intervals since the sun was finally starting to peak through the trees.

We started off our first mile repeat super relaxed - we went through the first 400m in a 96, which would be 6:24 pace.  By the 800m mark, we had picked it up to 3:00 and negative split by 13 seconds in the second half to finish in 5:47.  I didn't want to run all of my mile repeats at 5:47, but it was a good way to open up the work out so that I felt smooth and relaxed at that pace. 

When we ran the last four intervals, we added on 5-10 meters past the 3 mile mark since this mile is the short one.  I think this should account for whatever distance that mile is short, but who knows.  Regardless, when I saw my time for the second repeat (5:34), I was thrilled. I felt relaxed in the first 800m, and with the uneven footing, I was able to run a decent split.  We ran 5:29-5:34 for these intervals on the back loop and on each repeat, we were faster through the 1200m mark than we had been on the one prior.  Billy pulled away from me on the 4th and 5th ones, and Spada on the 5th. 

Overall, I'm really pleased with this workout because I completed all of the intervals, posted good times on difficult terrain, and battled through it when I really wanted to stop on the fifth one.  On Thursday, I've got a 5 mile tempo that I'm hoping to knock out on the Booty Loop to provide some challenge with the uphill and downhill.

interval: time (jog rest time)
1: 5:47 (3:10)
2: 5:34 (2:51)
3: 5:33 (2:52)
4: 5:29 (2:46)
5: 5:31