9 PAX descended into the dark of the Martin Middle School track, only to face the red and white blinking landing lights of two low flying planes… or were those women conducting fly-by operations on the track? Early on, they chose the Chong Li path and ran clockwise into our counter-clockwise rotation – scattering the PAX hither and yon. Later, one persisted and found the common direction suitable and had to be chased down (which proved to be difficult) by the rather speedy Ben Johnson. Enough with the area operation reports… on to the THANG
2 lap warm-up including high knees, butt-kickers, and 2 stride accelerations
4 x 7 minute Cruise Intervals at Threshold pace with 2 minute rest period.
- T-Pace is supposed to be “comfortably hard” and a pace that can be maintained for only an hour max. Think of faster than half-marathon pace.
- The idea is pushing the body to the point that Lactic Acid builds steadily in the legs as you push at the point where the body is challenged to remove it from the muscles – hence Lactate Threshold.
- From a practical perspective, T-pace is about 1:00/mile slower than Mile Race Pace (R-Pace). Most of the PAX worked at the 6:45 – 7:30/mile pace, turning the Cruise Intervals into Mile repeats…
Only one cool-down lap (won by Au Pair) as we are short on time.
- My apologies to the PAX for the incessant nagging from my watch. Tried using Buck Rogers to program the workout in and monitor the timing of the repeats. My pace zones were a little too tight, so the watch nagged… and nagged … and nagged some more. Too fast, too slow, too fast, too slow. Lessons learned
- April brings a time for new growth as we greet the spring with Endurance training. You’ll notice less anaerobic work this month as we take a break from the fast intervals and work on other parts of the engine. This helps YHC and others as we work toward the Tar Heel 10-miler and the Raleigh 70.3. But it is also good to change the work out for all to stave off injury.
- T-claps to the PAX. Seeing many improvements among the PAX as we work into this new series. Looking forward to seeing results at the May mile test – I venture to say that Au Pair will set a PR at the mile in May. There, I said it.
- CK looked for a show of hands of interest in a Thursday AM trail run at Umstead at 5:45a. Will stick to the Bridle Trails until the light afford the opportunity to hit the single track (and the roots). 3 or 4 hands were raised. More to come….
