I’ve found that the choice of what workout to perform can be difficult. There’s so many different workouts out there, each of them claiming to have benefits over every other one. It’s like eating in that fashion; everyone has there opinion of what you should be eating and what you should be avoiding like the plague.

I’ve been researching various workouts to find one that matches my needs. I did a round of a modified P90X routine consisting of the resistance-based P90X routines with my running routine replacing the aerobic portions. I had good success but it was time for a change. The drawbacks of P90X for me personally were:

• The workouts are relatively long. For someone trying to fit a workout in at lunch this is a drawback. The typical day is roughly an hour and 15 minutes including abs.
• Some of the movements are either awkward or of dubious benefit. To me it seems they were stretching a bit to fill in the workouts.
• More personally, my “workout space” at home is a shared space that usually requires clearing out to work out. That’s a pain.

My goals whittled down the competition. It’s obviously quite important to pick a workout that suits your goals. My goals are finding a workout that compliments my running training, that works towards overall body fitness and “leaning up” rather than building mass. The workout should be reasonably brief but at a fairly high intensity. Ideally it should also not require a bunch of specialized equipment and be something I could do at my gym.

Enter the Spartacus Workout

There are lots of what I’ll term “fad workouts” out there. There’s the 300 workout, the Spartacus Workout, and a myriad of others. I don’t mean that as disparagingly as it sounds. The simple fact is all of these health magazines have to earn their money and capitalize on crazes. Hence, tons to choose from. I took a look at a lot of them and the Spartacus Workout resonated most clearly. At its core its simply a circuit training regimen. 3 sets of 10 exercises performed in sequence with continuous reps for 1 minute with 15 seconds of recovery in between exercises, with 2 minutes of recovery between sets. Sounds like a mouthful but read it a couple of times if it’s not clear. Total workout time is around 42 minutes which is right in my wheel house.

The exercises selected are as follows (and illustrated here):

The Original Spartacus Workout

1. Goblet squats
2. Mountain climbers
3. Single-arm dumbbell swings
4. T-pushups
5. Split jumps
6. Dumbbell rows
7. Dumbbell side lunge and touch
8. Pushup-position row
9. Dumbbell lunge and rotation
10. Dumbbell press

That’s a fairly adventurous full-body workout depending on the weight selected and the reps performed. However, to my eye it seems heavy on legs and lower back and a bit light for chest, back, and especially biceps. Here’s my modified version that attempts to add a bit more balance and address these perceived shortcomings.

The Spartacus Workout Evolved

1. Goblet squats
2. Mountain climbers
3. Single-arm dumbbell swings
4. T-pushups
5. Standard grip pullups / Wide grip pullups / Narrow grip chinups
6. Standard pushups / Diamond pushups / Wide pushups / Incline pushups
7. Dumbbell side lunge and touch / Split jumps
8. Pushup-position row
9. Dumbbell lunge and rotation
10. Dumbbell press

The changes hit at station 5. We’re swapping out split jumps for one of my personal favorite back exercises, pullups. You can choose any of the three types listed per set, so mix it up. I’d recommend doing your least favorite in the first set when you’re at your strongest. With this one change we’ve done a world of good with back and biceps. Be sure to work in a set of chinups — palms facing you — in order to activate those biceps.

Station 6 switches from the relatively anemic dumbbell rows to pushups. There’s no reason you can’t mix dumbbell rows in on occasion as they do activate a different part of the back, but we’re already getting rows in station 8. Pushups are just a good exercise. They hit core, they hit triceps, they hit chest. Now we’ve addressed the shortcomings of the workout as I saw them.

Station 7 I’ve given you a choice between the side lunges and the split jumps. Split jumps are awesome so I didn’t want to get rid of them completely, but something had to give and the original routine was slightly leg-heavy.

So that’s it! Do this routine 3 times a week. I’ll be doing this routine 3 times a week interspersed with my running days on 3 other days with one day of rest.

I’ve done this one a few times and it’s a really good, efficient, full-body workout that should work to lean and strengthen and get that heartrate up for a while. If you have similar goals as me give it a shot and let me know what you think.

Who has two thumbs and still can’t run after my half marathon in May? Yeah, this guy. Remember how I mentioned my right Achilles tendon smarting during that final tenth up the final hill? I don’t think that was a tendon; at this point I’m almost positive I tore my calf a bit.

I gave myself a couple of recovery days and, like a twit, fired up a hilly tempo run on the following Thursday. I made it 4 miles in and wham, the calf got me. Out of nowhere. I was fine and then I wasn’t. I walked a bit and stretched — bad idea when dealing with a tear — and ran some more. I was hurting and alternated running and walking the rest of the way back. So started the resting period again. This time I gave it until the following Saturday. 9 days of recovery! That should be plenty. I wasn’t going out hard, wasn’t going for a hilly run. I made it all of 9/10s of a mile before it hurt me again. I did all the inappropriate stuff again and cut my run off at 4 miles before heading to the barn.

This time I’m giving it 2 full weeks before I run. I’m kind of lost, to be honest. I don’t feel like me without my weekend long runs. So, what to do while recovering?

Swimming. I admit it, I am a sorry swimmer. I’ve never competed, never trained, never really even been taught an appropriate stroke. Sure, I had the basics when I was a kid, but I’ve never been taught an efficient exercise-worthy stroke. I make do. My buddy loaned me his Total Immersion book and I’ve watched plenty of YouTube videos of good strokes and I try to emulate that. I’ve done this a few times before for cross-training, and when I first started it was hard. I’d labor to do 400 meters. That was my workout.

Somehow this time is different. I went out and banged out 1200 meters the first day out. Buh? Hell, I did 750 meters before I even took a breather. Previously I was doing good to make it 100 meters before needing to stand up for a bit and breathe. My goal is to add 100 meters each day out. I’ll hit a mile soon which is a mark that seemed impossible even a year ago. It may not be pretty, I may not be able to do a kick-turn and I might make the lifeguards wince, but I’m doing it.

Maybe some day I’ll feel good enough to take on the Pensacola 3-mile Bridge Swim like this guy. That would be something, though the actual swimming part might not be the challenge; keeping cool while envisioning the Surface creature under me will be.

Here’s the shot of Scott and I at the finish at the Inside-Out Classic 1/2 this weekend. I had tossed a water cup over my head at the next to last water station, but I felt soaked to the bone even before that. This summer is going to be a hoot.

Removed photo until I can upload our own .

This Sunday was the 12th Annual Inside-Out Sports Classic Half Marathon, possibly the least concise event name ever constructed but a fun and popular local event. I haven’t really been training for a distance event aside from tossing a couple more miles onto my weekly 5K training long runs. I figured I’d still be okay after the year of marathon training. I guess we’ll see.

Prerace

Luckily this race is very local for me. 7 minutes of driving and I’m at the starting line. With a 7:00 am start I got up around 5ish and had some food and drink then futzed around trying to wake up. I’d love to say I sleep perfectly before a race but I don’t. I got to sleep fine but our cat decided to pray to its Egyptian gods or something at about 11:00 and I had a hell of a time shutting my noggin back down and getting back to sleep. Ah well. After a quick pitstop at the grocery store to grab some Gatorade and hit the restroom I was parked and making my way to the start. I decided against carrying my own bottles and Gu this time. It’s 13 miles! There would be water stations and I wouldn’t hit any conceivable glycogen depletion wall within 2 hours so what’s the point?

I picked up my race chip and realized that nature was calling one final time. The lines for the portapotties were astounding and there was exactly 3 minutes before the gun. Nature time. With my bladder relieved I made my way to the starting area and had just enough time for a few little arm swings and leg stretches — notably missing my right Achilles which will become important later — and then the gun sounded. Away we go on my first official half marathon distance.

The first half

I was fairly far back in the pack after my nature pee so I dodged a bunch in the early stages. I didn’t have too many concrete goals for this race aside from finish and hopefully beat my previous PR from the first half of Shamrock at 1:58:44. That’s it. I wasn’t going out hard because I hadn’t been training for a hard half. I just wanted to run the race. Early on I targeted between 8:30 and 8:45 for lack of any better goal.

The IOS Classic is a hilly little beast, at least to me who isn’t used to hills. I mean sure, we don’t have anything gargantuan here but there is a fair amount of elevation change across the whole course. The course starts with a snarky little downhill that breaks many a heart because the course is nominally out and back. People think “egad, I have to run back up this on the way to the finish?!” but they don’t. That’s not to say there isn’t a hill at the end, but we’re not there yet.

The first 5K presents a fairly steady, mild incline. It’s hard to even notice that you’re climbing, honestly. Given the strict “no headphone” ruling at risk of being DQed and banned from future runnings of the event I obviously didn’t wear mine. I still saw several people who did and I marvel at their temerity. Honestly, what doesn’t compute? Eh, whatever. I’ve been running without it more and more so it didn’t present any particular difficulties. Water stops were provided very early on — like a third of a mile in, honestly… I skipped it — but that was primarily to cover the return trip at around 11 miles.

In the early going I admit it: I wasn’t feeling it. Maybe it was my week — my mother was admitted to the hospital on Friday due to weakness and dehydration from the chemo — maybe it was the poor sleep, I don’t know. I just wasn’t feeling it. I could easily have stopped along the side of the road, waited for everyone to pass and headed back to my car. I recently talked about the difficult of maintaining enthusiasm in the face of everything but this was it, all distilled down into a minute on the road. I thought about it and really considered it. But why would I have quit? Because it hurt? No. Because I had to? No. Just because I didn’t feel like it? That ain’t enough. So I kept going.

At the first water station I decided I was going to walk through the water stations. Why not? It didn’t help that my first sip went straight up my nostril. So perhaps “decided” is too strong. I grabbed a cup of water and one of Gatorade and chugged them both, tossed the cups in the trash can and was off again. Maybe 10 seconds of walking. Not bad, not bad. I wasn’t think so much about not feeling it, I was just running. I was at the top of the gradual incline and facing the downhills. That’s cake. I was still on-pace at around 8:40 and taking it rather easy.

There’s a rather noticeable downhill trend from 3 miles into about 4 and 3/4 miles which I was dreading the return trip up. Out and backs are dandy until you realize that all of these declines are soon to be inclines. Then I hit the 5 mile “marker” — there were no actual mile markers on the course which is a bit weird… many people asking the mileage — and the mystery incline. During my “preview” I’d turned around at the 5 mile mark to do my scheduled 10. Now I had to keep going approximately another mile. Being unknown it worked it’s mysterious influence on me. I knew that I had an incline on the return trip from miles 7 to mile 9.5… I just didn’t know what mile 5 through 6 and through 7 looked like. I was hoping for a nice level area to give me a breather in preparation for the inevitable climb I knew I faced. No such luck. I thought the damned thing would never end. I got to the turnaround — with its water station, thankfully — and at least enjoyed a bit of downhill leading to the big climb.

The last half

I finally saw my boss, Scott, at the turnaround. I knew he was racing but didn’t have time to seek him out before the race and hadn’t seen him. Prior to the turnaround I thought I saw him up ahead but couldn’t be sure. At the turnaround we traversed a little loop in the trail and I saw that it was definitely him but it ended up that he didn’t see me. So I’m sure he had some confusion wondering where I could have been since, given an almost 100% out and back he would have seen me at some point.

I made it to the bottom of the decline at mile 7 and started The Big Climb. This ascent start on a bit of a switchback that is probably the worst of the climb in all honesty, climbing 200 feet steadily for a mile. I was slowly reeling Scott in and was also caught by a very nice young lady who complimented me on my shirt and told me she had caught up with me to tell me about that and her own mother’s battle with cancer. I thought that was wonderful of her and thanked her. The climb leveled off a bit but heads back up again after a while and I finally caught Scott about 8 and 1/4 miles in at the base of the beginning of the steepest part of the climb.

“After this that it for the yucky parts, Boss,” I said as I prepared to pull even with him.

“There you are. I wondered where you’ve been,” he huffed. I told him let’s save our breath until the top of the hill. The climb was pretty brutal with me topping off at 179 on the heartrate monitor. But I didn’t walk any of the climbs. I was proud of that. Scott said he was feeling pretty good until the start of the big climb at mile 7. Then he started feeling beat. I commiserated as those are some taxing climbs. I decided at that point to help bring him in. This was his first time ever going longer than 10 miles and he was starting to struggle a bit; we were also supposed to be running together anyway since there were no iPods allowed. So I started pacing him and we got our minds off the race a bit lamenting idiotic customers and silly requests. His goal was to maintain sub 9-minute miles so we both kept each other honest on pace.

At 9.5 miles in the vast bulk of the inclines are done. There might be some surprises at the end — and there was — but it’s a net downhill from here which was nice. So we cruised over the final portions inside Umstead, popped over I40 and hit the final water station before veering off the out and back and onto fresh territory on the greenway.

“Why are we going this way?” I joked with the course marshal who told us to turn. “It’s a whole lot shorter if we go back the way we came.” It got some chuckles from him and the water station people but for all I know that was the 500th time they’d heard it. The greenway section was another fairly straightforward out and back, though because it was unknown and near the end it felt longer than it had any right to feel. Those late miles you start picturing being done and looking for the turnaround point to head for home. Scott and I ran together and I took the lead down the greenway because it got really narrow especially when you had facing traffic coming back. We finally reached the turnaround and there was a little over a half a mile to go.

We branched off the greenway out and back to head up to the finish line and met the final surprise. A nice little steep 75 foot climb in the final quarter of a mile. I started up it and my previously unstretched right Achilles tendon decided it wanted to seize up. Oh wow did it twinge hard on me. This was right about the time that I spotted Cat and Julia and they spotted me. So there I am leading Scott up the hill, trying to keep running while my tendon wants to snap. Not the most enjoyable part of the race. But I got up to the girls and gave Julia a high five and made the turn into the parking lot where the finish line was. Scott was behind me so I eased up until we were side-by-side and we crossed the line together.

With all of that I ended up with a new PR of 1:57:18.

Thoughts and conclusions

Very weird race for me. My heart hasn’t been in it and I didn’t turn my personal issues into motivation. I could and should have used the things going on as fuel or at least viewed the running as an escape. Something to think about.

I’m pleased with how it went, really, aside from my Achilles. It’s a little sore today but nothing earth-shattering. I didn’t push anything and felt quite good — aside from the early race “blah” — and it was a good feeling helping a friend reach his goal. He would have made it without me, I know, but hopefully it helped some. I probably could have scraped some additional time from my PR if I hadn’t slowed down to run with Scott but so what? There will be more races and it felt like the right thing to do. I think on a more forgiving course I have a much faster PR ahead of me.

The race itself was a mixture of fine and not so great. Aid stations were plentiful during the race but the lack of mile markers was disappointing; I know there’s some regulatory issue surrounding them but that’s not my problem. I miss having official splits. Volunteers were fantastic but the finish area was a bit crazy with giant lines for food and drink. I prefer the style of finishing corral at Shamrock (an admittedly larger event) where you finished and then stumbled at your own pace through a long runner recovery area with the finisher swag, then a water station, then various foodstuffs all as you walk along.

This weekend is the Inside Out Sports Classic Half Marathon (that’s a mouthful), a locally popular race through a fantastic natural park in Cary. I’d been looking forward to running a half for many months. Last weekend I decided to preview the course a bit on my long run, running 10 miles of it to see the lay of the land. Here’s the result:

I’m glad I’ve been doing more hills because there isn’t a foot of flat ground on this course. That hill about 9 miles into the race is going to be a doozy.

How silly am I?

We’re both scheduled to race the Inside Out Sports Classic Half Marathon in two weeks which will likely be interesting for both of us. He’s never done that distance while I’ve completed two full marathons. I’d like to PR that one which I think it imminently possible since my current PR was in the middle of a marathon — and, unlike the sadistic race directors for this race, the half marathon starts at 7:00 AM — but it’ll be interesting to see if my focus on training for shorter races has already had a negative impact on my endurance. Could be interesting.

I should really learn to check the course before flapping my gums. I’ve seen this course before. Do you know where I’ve seen it? While discussing my desire to add more hills to my training a neighbor pulled out his map of Umstead and pointed out this exact course as a wonderful one for punishing elevation changes. Fantastic! I mean, look at this.

There’s over 5 miles of serious incline on that course. Forget PRing, I just want to finish it in some non-ridiculous fashion. I’m currently trying to work more hill training in but certainly haven’t gotten enough under my belt to be undaunted in the face of this.

Sheesh, if it’s not heat it’s hills.

Today was PR day. I wanted my 22:XX PR. The course was described as “fast”. I had been training regularly and felt good. But I was nervous. The weather, so recently glorious and cool turned typical Raleigh: race time forecast of 90 degrees, gusty winds. Would the training overcome Mother Nature?

Prerace

I knew the temperature would be a bit abusive, so I’d been hydrating well for the last couple of days. Sure, it ain’t a marathon but practicing hydration never hurts anyway. Being a 2:00 PM race start I had a fairly typical morning, though instead of my usual egg-white omelet I shared in the crepes we made for Julia — who had a friend sleep-over for her birthday — figuring they’d make for a higher-carb morning. I left the house about 12:30 and grabbed a smoothie on the way. I’m used to exercising before lunch so I was concerned how my stomach would do with lunch in my belly but I figured I’d bonk if I didn’t have something. A small smoothie seemed like a decent compromise.

I got to the race area about an hour early, parked and read my book for a bit to relax. About half an hour before race time I wandered up, claimed my race chip and took a final whiz at the perfect time. Still had about 15 minutes before the race and my bladder would be nice and comfy.

This year the race is being held to benefit the NC Hopeful Parents organization and they spoke a bit before the race during warm-ups. This little girl, perhaps 10 or 11, got up and spoke about her experience being adopted. It was obviously emotional for her and when she began speaking about her birth mother, a farmer in Mexico, she couldn’t go on. Precious thing tried to hold it together but it was too big. We all cheered for her bravery as she left the stage and climbed up into her mother’s arms. I got choked up — big surprise, I’m a softy with kids — and wanted to give her a hug too.

With about 10 minutes to go we all started lining up somewhat haphazardly as it was a bit confusing where we were to start. But it worked out. I met up with my boss, Scott, again and we lamented the conditions and talked a bit about our goals. I admit, our own little rivalry is powerful if unspoken. Before the race started he had me by 9 seconds in PR. I hoped to change that.

The first half

I had the 175 BPM Podrunner mix going, hoping to keep my turnover at 175 SPM. I figured at 5K pace it would be doable. The race started and I let Scott get about 3 yards ahead where I could keep an eye on him. I settled into my pace and started getting into the groove. We were both aiming early for about 7:20 but we were a little fast through the first 2/3rds of a mile with adrenaline and crowd confusion, averaging about 7:15 through there. The first mile split came at 7:26 for me, with Scott about the same.

The second mile presents a pretty steady few inclines before the turnaround which conspired with the early speed, the heat and humidity to beat the crap out of us. Scott maintained his pace a bit better than me, steadily widening the gap. The split at the second mile came at 7:33, but my heart rate up that incline and around for the return got up to 185 which is around 97% of my heart rate reserve. At this point I had a goal. It was a different goal from the start but it was a goal nonetheless: don’t stop.

I’ve talked a lot recently about trying to increase my mental resolve back to were it was last summer. Last summer I never quit. Then I got into the Galloway mindset of calculated walks and it affected how I view running. I think calculated walking during training can be beneficial to people. But I think it makes it far easier once you get into that mindset to let yourself give in to the momentary pain. It’s the easiest thing in the world to allow yourself 30 seconds of walking. It feels so wonderful physically to not be running when you’re tired like that. It’s hot, it’s humid, you’re breathing like a bellows, let’s just let off for a bit and catch our breath.

I didn’t want to do that this race. I thought about it. My brain on many an occasion said “this absolutely sucks. Hey man, no one is going to care if you take a little break and walk for a bit. Come on, it’ll feel good and then you’ll be able to get going again in no time.” But I didn’t. Up yours, brain. Yes, this sucks. Yes, it would feel great for a bit. But it would feel worse mentally having given in to your incessant yammering.

So I kept chugging. I wasn’t turning 175 SPM any more, I wasn’t up for it. Following the turnaround there’s a nice downhill that I took advantage of and for the next almost 4/10s of a mile I was pulling closer to a 7:39. Off pace, but faster than the 8:26 pace I eventually hit at the top of the incline. The final tiny incline had me puffing again turning nearer 8:00 pace, then it was the final half a mile, downhill.

I was hoping to have some kick at this point and reel in Scott who had built up a fairly substantial lead. I tried to rally the troops but the soldiers were worn out. My pulse was still pumping at about 93% of my reserve and it was all I could do to get down around 7:30 with a bit at 7:20, but that’s it. Final time according to the Garmin was 24:01.

Thoughts and adjustments

On days like this Boston seems far away. No PR today, not even close. My final average pace was 7:38 overall, and I’d have to do better than that over a full marathon to qualify at my age. That’s daunting and admittedly depressing. I know it wasn’t an ideal day to run. I feel good knowing that I gave pretty much all I had to give out there. I think, as Adam found, that the cumulative years will benefit me most in reaching Boston and I’ve got years to go. I’m in no hurry. If it takes me 10 years to qualify for Boston, it takes 10 years! I’d like to think it’ll take less than that but realistically I may not be ready for that long.

I’ll acclimatize to the heat since I typically train at lunch time anyway. It’ll be painful but helpful. Once you’ve trained at 100 degrees with matching humidity for a while, 90 degrees doesn’t seem so bad.

Scott had come in right around 23:30 again which, given the weather, was a real good showing for us. We’re fairly evenly matched, though he obviously has the edge right now. We’re both scheduled to race the Inside Out Sports Classic Half Marathon in two weeks which will likely be interesting for both of us. He’s never done that distance while I’ve completed two full marathons. I’d like to PR that one which I think it imminently possible since my current PR was in the middle of a marathon — and, unlike the sadistic race directors for this race, the half marathon starts at 7:00 AM — but it’ll be interesting to see if my focus on training for shorter races has already had a negative impact on my endurance. Could be interesting.

Found a fascinating piece (at Dubious Quality… thanks Bill!) in the New York Times — written in 2006 but new to me — about a Slovenian ultra-endurance cyclist. Jure Robic wins ultra-endurance cycling events like RAAM and Le Tour Direct. He’s won them for years. These are multi-week, non-stop events. He also has the world record for the longest distance covered in 24 consecutive hours: 518.7 miles. By every measure he’s likely the greatest living ultra-endurance athlete. I’ve labeled this “inspiration” and it is in some ways, but it could also be construed as a cautionary tale as well. You see, he’s a bit crazy.

The craziness is methodical, however, and Robic and his crew know its pattern by heart. Around Day 2 of a typical weeklong race, his speech goes staccato. By Day 3, he is belligerent and sometimes paranoid. His short-term memory vanishes, and he weeps uncontrollably. The last days are marked by hallucinations: bears, wolves and aliens prowl the roadside; asphalt cracks rearrange themselves into coded messages. Occasionally, Robic leaps from his bike to square off with shadowy figures that turn out to be mailboxes. In a 2004 race, he turned to see himself pursued by a howling band of black-bearded men on horseback.

‘‘Mujahedeen, shooting at me,’’ he explains. ‘‘So I ride faster.’’

I recently mentioned that I needed to find a way to keep going when my body tells me I shouldn’t.

It’ll require me to rethink my own limits of pain and the amount of effort I’m willing to exert. It’ll mean convincing myself not to give in when everything is screaming that I should. In short, I have to find someone inside myself that I’ve never found.

Maybe I need to find a little bit of Jure Robic in me. Not much; I don’t personally desire to be chased by Mujahedeen. But I know when my mind is telling me to quit I’m nowhere near my body’s limits.

Today was scheduled for a simple 3 mile tempo run at 7:52. But I had other ideas, especially with my lack of leg workouts in the last two weeks and my 5K this weekend: hill repeats. Don’t know what a hill repeat is? Simple.

1. Pick a decent hill.
2. Run up the hill.
3. Jog back down the hill.
4. Repeat steps 1 through 3.

Hill repeats are classic running workouts. If you’re training for a hilly race, obviously hills should be a big part of your training. However, hill repeats have benefits even on the flat races. If you don’t like to hit the weight room — or, like me, have difficulty working gym time into your schedule — a hill workout constitutes a great workout for improving leg strength as it’s related to running. It has the added benefit of being a serious cardiovascular workout as well.

I admit I haven’t done many traditional hill repeats, but that’s changing as it’s vital to both get faster and — duh — get used to hills. In accordance with my other dictate about increasing my foot turnover I started off with the 175 BPM Podrunner track going. I did okay at 172 and figured this would be a good jump. I warmed up pretty fast at an average 7:42 pace — more about that later — and maintained that on my first hill repeat. The hill I was targeting is right near my usual lake lap, so I warmed up around the lake which brought me to the beginning of the incline. The hill is right at 1/4 mile to the apex which is a good distance for a medium hill repeat; the elevation change is about 100 feet for about a 7.5% grade. I managed 4 repeats before my form started breaking down, with splits of 1:58, 1:54, 1:58 and 2:03.

Overall, a fun and challenging workout.

Thoughts on foot turnover

175 is fast. I believe that’s as fast as I’m going to try to push it except for maybe mile time trials. My warm-up at 175 SPM was quite fast as it’s really tough for me to go slower than about 7:45 with that turnover. It’s far easier maintaining closer to 7:00 pace at that turnover rate… which is great if I’m shooting for that pace but I’m not even at that pace for 5Ks yet. I’ll almost certainly try for the Second Empire Classic this weekend, but we’ll see. I don’t think I’m going to go higher for right now until 175 doesn’t feel like so much of a stretch.

They say that 180 is where the elite athletes are which I believe. I suppose there’s another side to that coin: unless you’re turning 4:00 and 5:00 miles like elite athletes it’s a bit harder to hit that turnover rate. For my near-term marathon and half-marathon paces even 175 is likely high. Or it could simply be that I’m not used to it yet. It’s interesting trying it, though, and seeing how my body and paces react.

Next stop: The 10th Annual Second Empire Classic 5K! Race report on Sunday or Monday. With hopefully good news… though the weather outlook is deteriorating rapidly. The high is currently up to 93 degrees. It was 89 yesterday. At this rate by the time Sunday dawns it’ll be 105.

I was hoping to run the 10th Annual Second Empire Class 5K — touted as “one of the fastest 5K courses in the Triangle area” — but it looked as though we would be having Julia’s birthday party that day due to scheduling conflicts. A bit disappointing, but there’s no race in the world I’d skip my daughter’s birthday party for. Now the party is being held on Saturday, though, so my Sunday suddenly opened up.

I’d love to PR this race but one factor may limit my chances somewhat; 90 degrees tends to hamper the performance a bit. It’s not like this is a morning race, either. It’s held right in the perfect time for heat, 2:00PM. Sadistic race directors.

I’ll have to go out a bit conservatively and see how I feel; maybe shoot for a 7:30 split for the first mile and adjust accordingly. I’d like to think I could do better than that, but that heat is the wildcard. I know how I react during the heat: poorly. If humidity stays low it shouldn’t be completely brutal, but 90 degrees is still 90 degrees.

Keeping my fingers crossed!