Steve - 5.25

Ok so now for the much anticipated wrap-up of my visit to Caltech to work out with a local running club, the Los Feliz Flyers!

The track at Caltech is mondo, which is a pretty hard, fast running surface. Michael Johnson's former world record in the 200m was set on this surface (in Atlanta). Today I also wore my Nike Frees in a final test to see if I am going to keep them. I wore them for the entirety of the warmup, workout, and cooldown. They passed the test. I am keeping them.

Everyone was pretty friendly and I think I'll have some good opportunities to make some running buddies. On the workout:

3x4x400, 100/400r. (Click here to see Luke's explanatory post if you need a definition of the notation) According to a 5K time of 21:30, which is probably a slightly conservative estimate of a 5K I could run today, they recommended I run my 400 repeats at 90 sec (6 min/mile pace). That sounded like no problem for me since I used to run 400 repeats about 25-30 seconds faster a few years ago in college. But I wasn't really concerned with hitting times. I wanted to run in a way that I didn't need to really push to hit the times. I think its better to not tax myself too much on these intervals and instead keep a steady, challenging pace. And that's exactly how it went pretty much. Here are the times:

1. 92, 96, 97, 89 2. 96, 95, 93, 86 3. 92, 80

So I did only 2.5 because the rest of my group stopped after 2. The third set was optional. The fast group was lining up when I was hesitating to decide if I should do a third. They had only 2 reps left so I ran with them for the last two. They were were way ahead, but I wasn't concerned with racing. I finished last in that group both times. The fastest guy closed with a scorching 62! I just tucked in behind the last guy and ran a solid 80. I had to work hard in the last 100, but it wasn't all out. After I was done I actually felt pretty good. I'm a sprinter by nature so these kind of workouts aren't anything new to me. I could have run a lot of my intervals faster, but I'm training for a 5K right now and it doesn't really make any sense at this point to go any faster since it would require a lot more effort. I'm also still getting a feel for pacing. I want to be able to run a 5K at 6min/mile pace within a month or so, so this workout helps me see what it would feel like. Definitely not ready for it yet, but with more mileage I'll get there!