Elite Jogging For Dummies

From home to Liberty Park for three easy laps and then back home.

Track workout @ East High. Today was was not a "speed" workout in the true sense, but it was a long workout that tested threshold stamina, endurance and attention to form. Bud James, the Chicago coach who designed my marathon plan, described it as an "important workout for the mind as well as for the body."

Here's the design of this ladder workout:

1 mile, 1200m, 800m, 600m, 400m with 400m jog recovery between every interval. Three sets of this. All done at 6 minute pace. So, not fast but pretty long.

I started with a mile warmup and then 4 x 100m strides.

For the first mile, I went out slow, as usual: 6:10. After that, I didn't fall off 6min pace. Most of my splits were at 87 seconds or so. It would take me too long to write all the splits for every interval, but here's what I did on the second set:

Mile: 5:55

1200: 4:28

800: 2:57

600: 2:13

400: 1:27

I did a one mile cool down after the third set.

The biggest challenge in the workout for me was finishing the 400, jogging easy, and then digging back in for the mile. The pace was not a problem, it was more a matter of breaking down the workout into individual laps instead of thinking about the length of the workout as a whole. That approach seemed to work today.

From home, I ran the U/Foothill/Zoo/U loop, easy. Sort of stale, definitely feeling yesterday's workout.

From my house, Jed Burton and I ran to City Creek Canyon via the Capitol. We ran easy up to the top of City Creek, but kept a pretty honest pace even as it got steeper. We ran into Brian and Casey shortly after we turned around at Rotary Park. They had started at the Sunnyside post office and were out running 22. Brian's pacing at Wasatch this weekend and Casey's headed out of town, so they're getting in the long run today. Anyhow, after chatting with those guys for a minute, Jed and I started our descent in earnest. The plan was to run at marathon pace (or faster) for four miles, from miles 12-15. We hit mile 12 in 5:56, mile 13 in 5:47, mile 14 in 5:46 and mile 15 in 5:18. That last mile was certainly not my marathon pace, but it felt good to get that kind of leg turnover. We cooled down the last 1.4 back to my house.

Avenues loop, easy.

Lake Tahoe. I arrived Friday for the wedding of two of my good friends. I got up at 5:30 and headed out into the dark Sierra morning at about 5:50, running south from Tahoma to Sugar Pine Point State Park on the bike path. Ran part of the General Creek trail, then headed back north through Tahoma to Tahoe City, staying on the bike path. The sunrise over the lake was unforgettable. The bike path alternately hugs the lake shore, parallels the highway, or weaves through tall stands of towering pines and redwoods. The elevation is about 6300 feet, so that added some challenge as well. I felt pretty good through 10, suffered a bit through mile 14, and then picked it up from about 15 to the end. My pace was not quick, about 7:30. I was pretty beat at the end. I waded out into the cold, cold lake for a few minutes after the wedding rehearsal and that helped a bit.