This morning I was thinking today could be a good day for a rest day. My last day off from running was May 21st, and although I don’t feel like time off, I keep hearing about the benefits of rest and recovery. Fast forward a few hours and I receive an email from a good friend detailing his assigned workout for the day. Sadly, it only took a few minutes for me to start plotting an afternoon workout to match the workout my anonymous friend would be running. Think I’m addicted? I blame my recent DailyMile.com activity – so many great athletes, all inspiring and motivating each other. Yeah, addicted is probably quite an accurate assessment.
Anyway, onto the workout:
Moderate warm up, 5x400m each one with 2:30 recovery, 400m recovery, 5x400m each with a 2:30 recovery, cool down
I took advantage of the warm up to measure out a couple of quarter mile sections of Sportsplex parking lot. The local high school track was busy, the grassy soccer fields recently aerated, so parking lot it was to be.
The first couple of quarters were all about finding my pace. A stray dog didn’t help the first one (83 seconds) – thanks lady in the Subaru! The second quarter was a bit quicker, but still too slow – 78 seconds. Finally, on the third one, I found my Newton groove! 75 seconds and it felt comfortable. I followed up with a 74 and 73 and then “enjoyed” a 400m jog recovery.
I was determined to run quicker in the second set (after all, I didn’t want to let the dailymilers down, did I?) and clicked out some quick quarters – 73, 73, 73, 72 and a 71 to finish. I won’t say they were easy, but I’m confident I can run a little quicker next time, especially if the 400s are on a track.
I finished off with an easy couple of miles and used The Stick for about 10 minutes to help roll out a few knots. The Newton Gravitas and Newton Racer both performed very well, and the new Newton socks were surprisingly comfortable too. Good workout! What’s up for tomorrow?
I too find myself getting addicted or obsessed. Today is a perfect example, but I think I may win. I ran twice yesterday, and one of those was 9:00 last night. I knew that I would probably be running this afternoon with my daughter but I felt like I must get up and run this morning anyway. I won out though and slept in…. now I still am struggling with running this afternoon…. I want to, but the work/life schedule is getting in the way…. do I rest, or do I force a run because of my addiction? 🙂
I like dailymile.com but have too many things going on… I know I am missing out, but something had to give somewhere. 🙂