Thursday, December 31, 2009

New Year's Eve 800's

View of the San Gabriel Mountains from the Bikeway on top of the Santa Fe Dam

I figured I had to end the year with a bang. December 31st fell on a Thursday. Thursday is speed work day! The plan called for Yasso 800’s – 6 x 800. I’m officially at work but I’ve been taking advantage of the light work load and skeleton crew and extending my lunches a bit to get my runs in during the day. The most convenient place near work for the speed work is the San Gabriel River Bikeway, so off I went.

The calculators told me that my goal time was 2:57. That seemed overly ambitious. Following are my times for the run – warm up, 800’s, and cool down.

Mile 1 9:27
Mile 2 8:55
Mile 0.5 4:25
800 3:32
Rest 2:22
800 3:34
Rest 2:47
800 3:37
Rest 2:32
800 3:28
Rest 2:45
800 3:39
Rest 2:45
800 3:33
Rest 2:58
Mile 8 8:59
Mile 9 8:45
Total 1:18 Overall Pace: 8:41

So my 800’s were no where near the goal, but they were pretty consistent. The 800’s are typically run on a track, i.e. flat as a pancake. The bikeway is not, so I feel pretty good about maintaining the 3:3X pace throughout. I’d forgotten just how hard these things are. Using the McMillan calculator backwards predicts a 2:07 half off these 800’s. This is no where near my PR goal. We’ll see how the rest of the training goes.

Happy New Year!

4 comments:

Joe said...

those are very solid times, Darrell, as well as I understand Yassos. They seem quite consistent with your marathon performance.

Calculations, projections, extrapolations are instructive but not totally predictive nor prescriptive. So, I wouldn't get too uptight about them... more something to which you say "Hmmmmmm".

Happy New Year to you and your lovely bride!!!

Anne said...

What an inspirational view. I'd giddy-up w/ those Yassos too if that was what I had to stare at. Happy New Year, Darrell!

Sarah said...

Looks like a solid workout to me! Happy New Year!

Wes said...

I agre with Joes. 800s is just tough, and just doing them will make you a better runner!