First Mile Repeats of Track & Field Season
Posted on Apr 10, 2009 under Training | 4 CommentsWednesday, February 13, 2002
Workout: 1 mile warm-up, 2-200 meter strides, 6 1-mile repeats at 6:32 pace, 1 mile cooldown
Time: 6:28, 6:25, 6:24, 6:33, 6:25, 6:26; total: 38:41 (avg: 6:27) Weather: sunny/windy
Today was the second day of track and field practice, so it’s understandable that the coaches sent all the new runners on a run on the trail, rather than running mile repeats on the track. I don’t know why, but when Fernando told us that we were still doing intervals like usual, I was still kind of shocked. Sergio didn’t really tell us how fast to go on the run yesterday, so I went kind of hard (well, harder than one should go the day before intervals). Even after running kind of hard yesterday, I still ran the mile repeats pretty well, either right at or below the pace I was supposed to run them at. Today was the first time we ran our mile repeat intervals with so many other people out on the track. Since the track season officially started yesterday, there were a lot of other people training for their own individual track and field event. The experience running these mile repeats were both positive and negative. Some people were very considerate and would actually say “good job” to us and move out of the way as we ran toward them (I think it’s because most of them were former cross country runners). But everyone else didn’t bother to move or were really slow about it.
The mile times and the run in general was a little off today, probably because of all the distractions on the track. One mile repeat would be pretty close to the pace time, but then the very next one would be too fast. But it wasn’t like 10-20 seconds too fast, so it wasn’t a disaster. But the goal of these mile repeats is to build a good base and then get more into speed workouts as the track and field season approaches. I really needed to look at my watch a lot today while running the mile repeats, which means I haven’t really learned the pace just yet. Then again, I have never been able to learn a certain pace and have always relied on my watch or others to set the pace. Eventually, I finished the workout at an overall good pace. I hope though, that I get to focus more on shorter distances, since the longest distance I will be running is the mile.
April 10th, 2009 at 8:25 PM
Sounds like a great yet hard workout. I am awful with pace. Some days I feel fast and I’m going slow and sometimes I’ll be like this is a nice comfortable pace and it is faster than I thought. Keep working hard.
April 13th, 2009 at 7:39 AM
@Diana It was a good workout, glad to hear that I’m not the only one that is bad with pace 🙂 It’s always nice to think we’re running at a certain pace, when it’s actually faster.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:03 AM
i’m not so great at pacing either. on a track, i’m a little better, but on the road – i just can’t be fast and consistent. unfortunately i’m also usually the reverse – i think i’m going hard and fast and then my split is slower than desired. :-/ sigh. i do think once you get in a regular habit of speed work you find your paces and consistency.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:27 PM
@lindsay True, running on the track is a lot easier because you can literally break down your splits into 400m or even 200.. LOL if I ever think I’m running hard and fast, I will still think to myself that I’m running slower, just to avoid that type of disappointment. I definitely need to put in some more miles to be able to find my true pace.