Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Tuesday track

     I knew going into this I didn't feel great so I chose the lesser of the pointy sessions I have on my schedule for this week. I still didn't quite hit the session as planned but it served it's purpose. The goal was 3 X 350 meters in 51". I completed two and didn't attempt a third. About 4 weeks ago I raced my first 400 in 58" and today these two 350's were right at that same speed. The reason I decided not to try a third was because I didn't want to go too deep today partly because I didn't feel great and partly because I have two more sessions planned this week. I preach to my athletes all the time about not compromising many for the sake of one because consistency is one of the fundamental concepts (laws?) that lead to success.
     The workout: 2 X 350 meters in 51.6 and 52.1 on 5:00 recovery. I hit 28" on each of the 200 splits.

     The basic goals of the workout today were to work on draining creatine phosphate stores, which deplete by ~50% after the first 100 meters. and also shifting to glycolysis or the rapid break down of glucose. The distance of the intervals and the effort I put out were also useful in learning to tolerate high levels of lactate. If I made a mistake, or if I could have done something better today, it would have been taking 8:00 of recovery rather than 5:00. Creatine will fully replenish after about 8:00 which may have allowed me to get a third repeat. Lactate levels however would not have dropped significantly so that aspect would have still been worked. Lactate levels remain fairly unchanged between 3:00 post interval and up to 10:00 post interval. This concept has been one of the most profound for me coming from an ultra background. I think these recovery interval concepts illustrate well what it takes to truly "perform" a workout correctly. If you're doing speed work and taking short recoveries then you may not actually be doing speed work. Even my workout today was not speed work! It could be considered more "tempo" because these were quite a bit slower than goal race speed and goal race speed for a 400 meters still derives ~30% of your metabolic energy from the aerobic system... so NOT speed work. Kind of cool I think.

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