Speed! It's the one thing that separates the joggers from the runners. There is nothing wrong with not having a speed goal with regards to entering a race. Many people are just happy to finish the race and that was probably my mindset when I first started running 6 years ago. However, as I finished more and more races I wanted to improve on my finishing time. The only way to do that is to get faster and the best way that I know to get faster is by doing speed work.
After completing 6 weeks of hill training it was time to work on my speed. Those 6 weeks were meant to get my base mileage up and also increase strength and stamina. The next 7 weeks I will focus on shorter runs during the week but they will be faster than I have been running. Tuesdays will be track work, Wednesdays will be a recovery run of 5 miles and Thursdays will be either a Tempo run or a Pace run. I have also decided to cut back on my lower body weight training during the week. My legs have been taking a pounding lately and I know that the speed work will tax them even more. Now is the time to be smart with my training and that means doing less not more.
I'm lucky because there are plenty of 400 Metre tracks close to where I live. However,the one that I like the best is about 5 KM's away at a local High School in Pickering. As I drove there this morning I tried to visualize how I wanted the training session to look like. My goal was to run 4 sets of 800 M at an average speed of 3:35 per set. I wanted to "float" from stride to stride staying upright as much as possible and using my hands to move my feet faster. I hadn't done track work in about 2 years so I knew that it was going to be interesting to see just what I had set myself up for.
It was about 6:20 AM when I got there and I did a warm up lap and then some light stretching. I started off strong for my first set and when I finished I noticed that my time was 3:18. I'm sure that adrenaline played a big part in that. I also knew that the key to doing speed work is being as consistent as possible so I tried to use the first lap as a "1st gear" and then tried to hit my peak speed during the 2nd lap. I walked one lap (400 M) and then started off on the next set. The 2nd and 3rd sets were 3:24 and 3:26 respectively. With one more set remaining I really wanted to push myself and I was happy with the 3:18 last lap. That put my average at 3:21 for the 4 sets. This, just as it is with other good training sessions, will be bookmarked in my memory bank.
Eventually my speed work will top out at 10 sets of 800 Metres and that's when I'll know for sure where I'm at. For now, though, it was a good start and gives me something to build on.
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