"SUB-PAR" WORKOUT

Last night I ran a very easy 5 miles. During the run I came up on a gal running while her husband was riding his bike. This guy and I start talking and it turns out we “know” each other. We’ve never met, but we exchanged emails about 3 years ago. He was in charge of a south-metro running club and I was looking for people to run with. Most of his group was 3:30 marathoners and I was shooting for sub-3, so we never hooked up. Anyway, he said he trains with a bunch of 3-hour guys on Thursdays and that he’d add my name to their email list. I got an email from them this morning and I was a little confused by the workout;

SPEED: 8-10 miles including 2 x 2 mile tempos on soft surface to promote VO2 max.

Is it just me or is the use of “tempos” and “VO2 max” contradictory?

Speaking of contradictory, anyone get this active.com article regarding “the best running workout you’ve never done?” While Lydiard probably never referred to vVO2max, I believe his 30/30 workout is very similar to the “highly unorthodox” workout described in this article.

As I was heading to my car after this morning’s workout I noticed the vanity plates on the car next to mine; UNDRPAR. Obviously, the car belongs to a golfer. I thought, runners use the term “sub” all the time; sub-3, sub-18, sub-40, etc. How come golfers don’t? Then I realized UNDRPAR would become SUBPAR, which probably isn’t the message this guy/gal wanted to send. When it comes to golf, it’d be more like UNDRDBLBGY (under double boogey) for me.

Anyway, I had a “sub-par” workout this morning, but in the good way. It consisted of a 2 mile warm-up, 3 x 3 miles at marathon pace (MP) w/ ½ mile jog in-between, and a 2 mile cool-down. I ended up running the 3 repeats in 20:43, 21:03 and 20:44. I lost concentration a little on the second rep. While I don’t need laser-like focus to run MP, I do need to remind myself to pick the pace back up, after heading up a hill.

While I hope to run Chicago about 20 seconds per mile faster than today’s pace, I’ll take this workout because;

1) This was my first MP workout in along time.
2) Chicago is not today and I try to run these workouts based on the shape I’m in now, not where I want to be in 3 months.
3) I don’t think it’ll be 72 degrees with a dew point of 68 at Chicago.
4) Chicago doesn’t start at 5:45 AM.
5) This was my 3rd hard workout in 6 days.

All told, I ran 14 miles in about 1:45 and was done by 7:15 AM. Sweet.

Dang, this is getting to be a long post, but after giving a shout out to Tegenkamp’s 5k, it’s only right to praise the U.S. women who ran the 10k at Helsinki. Below are the results of the meet, followed by the U.S. all-time list. Congrats to Kara Goucher, who, yes, is a Minnesota native. While Katie McGregor did not PR (missing by 11 seconds), she appears to be running A LOT better than she was earlier this spring. Being the president of her fan club (in addition to Elizabeth Yetzer’s), that’s nice to see. Hmm, maybe the Kara Goucher fan club needs a president too.

Helsinki 10,000 METERS
1 2 Kayoko Fukushi Japan 31:00.64
2 1 Benita Johnson Australia 31:14.80
3 15 Kara Goucher USA 31:17.12 ****PR
4 7 Jen Rhines USA 31:24.16 ****PR
5 6 Katie McGregor USA 31:32.17
6 11 Sylvia Kibet Kenya 31:39.34
7 4 Lucy Wangui Kenya 31:48.68
8 10 Sara Slattery USA 31:57.94 ***** PR
9 13 Victoria Jackson USA 32:59.32
10 12 Samia Akbar USA 33:30.84

All-time U.S. 10,000 METERS
30:50.32 DeenaDrossin 2002
31.17.12 Kara Goucher 2006 *****
31:18.96 Amy Rudolph 2005
31:19.89 Lynn Jennings 1992
31:21.20 Katie McGregor 2005
31:21.92 Elva Dryer 2005
31.24.16 Jen Rhines 2006****
31:28.92 Francie Larrieu Smith 1991
31:30.89 Annette Peters 1997
31:34.37 Kate O'Neill 2004
31:35.25 Blake Russell 2005
31:35.3 Mary Slaney 1982
31:37.26 Anne Marie Lauck 1993
31:38.04 Judi St. Hilaire 1992
31:41.33 Libbie Hickman 1999

Quote of the day;

“I don’t know about psychology; I’m a runner.” – Steve Jones, when asked about his thought process after breaking the world record in the marathon in 1984.