Wednesday, April 24, 2013

5x1k repeats

This workout is a staple. And a good benchmark by which I can judge how I am doing. And I kind of like it.

I am writing about it so I can come back to this later and compare when I was and where I am.

But firstly, I did an 80 mile relay race on Saturday. One team lost a runner, somebody saw me by a pool with a bike on a car, they tracked me down and voila, I was doing a race. 8 people, each doing 3 legs, thus each of us ran around 10miles (my legs were 3.8, 2.5, 3.8) It was a great fun BUT once you were done with your leg you had no time to cool down or stretch. You hoped into a van to ride to the next switch point. And this constant hard running, sitting for ~3h, hard running, sitting etc killed my legs. I tried to walk as much as possible during those three hours while waiting till it was my turn again but it didn't help much. I felt my legs getting tighter and tighter. I was super sore on Sunday (and my 3.5h bike ride did not really help things) and I did a harder bike ride yesterday and an easy run and ouch! That run hurt.
I am still sore today but now I can at least walk down the stairs almost normally.

So the workout. At first the warm up was ok but then my legs, mostly right calf and right quad, started protesting to the point that I started contemplating not doing the workout because I might injure myself. But then decided to give it a try, take it easy and if I feel that it is too much I stop. Turns out that my muscles hurt only when I run slowly and I do not feel any pain when I run faster, intetesting.
5x1k at 5k pace with 2' jog. Yes, I jogged, transition period is over, real running beggings.
3:54, 3:54, 3:52, 3:50, 3:48. And it was easy-peasy. Ok, the last 200 was faster because I went through 800 in 3:05 and I wanted to get under 3:50. But the rest was effortless.
If 3:50-55 is my taking it easier, effortless pace on sore legs I will take it, no complains:)

I stopped after the last interval to take a sip of water and as I started running again to cool down those first steps were horrible. Ouch. My poor legs. And I am back to not being able to walk down the stairs normally. So it was probably quite stupid to do the workout but I am just so happy to be able to run that I don't want not to run.

PS: I might or might not have eaten half a cheesecake today. So I was high on sugar and that's probably one of reasons why the workout was ok. I always have a great run when I eat cookies/cake/other junk for lunch.

1 comment:

  1. Those are great 1000 times! And it is no wonder you run well after sugar - it is the easiet to digest. I sometimes make the mistake of trying to run after eating a salad. YIKES!

    ReplyDelete