Last year at track I was accused of having "stable syndrome". What the heck does that mean, you ask? Basically it means that I hold back a little bit until the last leg of the last interval and then go all out. Apparently some horses do this when they're racing. As soon as they can see the stable they go all out. I know nothing about horse racing so I have no idea if that's an accurate statement but I do know that it seems to be true for me.
Last night's workout, however, took full advantage of this tendency. After some stretching, a mile or so of warm-up and a half mile or so of drills we started our workout. 3x1000 meters with the first 800 meters of each at 5K pace and the last 200 meters of each FAST. Breaking the workout up like that really worked for me!
My goal was to start out a little easy and then make each rep faster than the previous one. Here's how I did:
Rep 1
800m - 4:07 (8:05 pace)
200m - :55 (7:16 pace)
(600 meter recovery jog @ 10:11 pace)
Rep 2
800m - 3:53 (7:45 pace)
200m - :53 (7:03 pace)
(600 meter recovery jog @ 10:17 pace)
Rep 3
800m - 3:42 (7:28 pace)
200m - :50 (6:35 pace)
I did it! I ran negative splits!
I really liked this workout. It was fun but challenging. It played to what I think are my strengths and was broken down into mentally manageable chunks. The goal was to teach us how to "change gears" like you do at the end of a race when you're getting close to the finish line. I think I'm pretty good at that (hence the stable syndrome comment) so now I just need to figure out how to do it earlier. Obviously I store a lot in my tank. Just need to learn how to tap into it even when I can't see the stable.
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