Ouch! This 2x(3x500) treadmill workout was pretty damn tough.

Fri, 3/9/18

6 MPH for 7:30 (.75M), lift/stretch for 4:00, 7 MPH for 7:30 (.84M), lift/stretch, and 8 MPH for 7:30 (1M).

Thurs, 3/8/18-

I took my cue from none other than Mark Williams for today's workout. He reported doing 2x(3x600) in 1:45, with 90 seconds' rest between repeats and four minutes' rest between sets.

On this wintry day with snowfall in the teens, I went to the Y for this bastard of a workout. Initially I wasn't sure about this one, since I had shoveled yesterday and some today. However, I got myself in gear and decided to see what I could do. After a sluggish mile warmup north of nine minutes, I stretched and lubed up with Icy Hot.

I figured a 1:45 600-meter run would be at about 13.0 MPH setting, or about 4:30 pace, after taking into consideration that the first 30 seconds are used to get up to speed. I hit .33M, just over 500 meters, in 1:30, and I realized I'd better do 500s instead of 600s! I told myself that maybe I'd do 90 on and 90 secs off, except it didn't work out that way since I wound up turning up the dial to 14.0 (max), or 4:00 mile pace.

So...I wound up doing the rest at max pace. I'd cover .31M, or 500m, in 1:23-1:24. I took 90 seconds' rest between repeats and four minutes between sets. It's interesting to think that I hit the 400m mark at about 69-70 seconds, even with the time the machine took to get up to top speed. My last 100 was predictably in about 15 seconds. Another way of looking at this is the first 30-35 seconds were used to get up to speed, and the last 50-55 seconds were at 60-second 400m pace.

Ouch! This 2x(3x500) treadmill workout was pretty damn tough.

For perspective, three years ago I went to the Y, warmed up a mile, stretched quite a bit, then made my way to the treadmill for 6x600 with 3:00 recovery between repeats.  My target pace was 1:50/1:55

Run 1: setting on 12.8 (4:44 pace)--1:58
Run 1: setting on 13.1 (4:38 pace)--1:57
Run 2: setting on 13.3 (4:34 pace)--1:55
Run 3: setting on 13.4 (4:32 pace)--1:54
Run 4: setting on 13.5 (4:28 pace)--1:52
Run 5: setting on 13.8 (4:20 pace)--1:49

Run 6: setting on 13.9 (4:16 pace)-1:47

Even though each repeat was 100m shorter, I believe my workout today was more impressive. The faster pace and shorter rest made up for the shorter distance.