Week 7, Day 4

Today I decided I'd better do the cruise interval workout I was supposed to do yesterday. I couldn't do it in the morning and then we had agility class, and then I had to eat lunch, so I didn't get to run until early evening.

I decided to do it on the treadmill because it was in the upper 80s by then. Have discovered that if all the dogs are in the basement (instead of just Ed) they actually settle down sooner and leave me pretty much alone. I did have a few interruptions during the warmup, and also had to stop in the middle of one interval to let Zen out and then let her back in again before the next interval started.

The workout was to be 6-8 x 4 minutes at a moderately hard pace, with 90 second recoveries, followed by 3 x 40 seconds with 1 minute recoveries. If you did it on the track, the intervals were supposed to be 1000 meters in the first set and 200 meters in the second set. The pace was supposed to be 8:34 - 8:20, based on my current speed.

I did the slow 20 minute warmup, and then started the intervals. I had hoped to start the first one at 8:34 pace (7 mph) and then pick it up with subsequent intervals. But 8:34 pace was hard enough, and I did them all at that pace. And of course I only did 6 of them. Those were four long minutes, each time, let me tell you.

For the recoveries, I walked for 30 seconds while I drank some water, then jogged for a minute.

I wasn't sure what speed I was supposed to do the second set at. Were they supposed to be at the same moderately hard pace or at something faster since they were so short. I compromised and did them at 8:13 pace (7.3 mph). Actually felt like I could have done them even a bit faster but just kept it there. For the recoveries, walked for 20 seconds and jogged for 40 seconds.

I was supposed to do a 10 minute cooldown, but I just jogged until the treadmill said it had been an hour, and then I did the five minute treadmill cooldown.

Tomorrow I am off to Boston to visit Susan and Ross. She has mapped out a 10 mile course for me, and I'm going to try to get it done on Sunday. The schedule has it on Saturday, but I think we'll be too busy then. Supposed to do another interval workout on Monday, but I guess that will have to shift somewhere or maybe that will be the one I have to skip. We'll see. I know I should do two hard workouts back to back because that is a real violation of the schedule.