Hump Day

We are halfway through the work week...yay! So Wednesdays my dad and I usually do speed work and today was no exception. The Yasso 800s are my new favorite speed workout. I read about it in Runner's Word: Complete Book of Running. If you don't know what they are it works like this: You run 800s in your marathon goal time...but in minutes. For example, I hope to run the Philadelphia Marathon in 3 hours and 30 minutes (key word = *hope). Therefore, I am supposed to run the Yasso 800s in 3 minutes and 30 seconds. You jog the same amount of time in between each one and repeat. You start small (around 4- 800s) and work your way up to 10. This week was supposed to be 7. I tend to cheat on my Yassos and always go faster than I am supposed to go. Some problem right? But when I go to fast I can't finish them all. The key to Yassos is consistency, something I definitely have trouble executing. For example, you are supposed to run all of the 800s at the same speed, no matter what it is. My goal time is 3:30 but my best Yasso today was 2:55 and my slowest 3:10...oops. No wonder I couldn't complete all 7! (I only got to 5). The problem is that we run them on the road. The local track is always booked and it got too hectic constantly changing the speed day. The nice thing about running on the road is there are no turns like there are on the track. Unfortunately, there is also no clear visual of where the end is. After jogging in between, we always end up starting in a different spot and mapping the distance with the Garmin. Also, there is an increased risk of twisting an ankle on an acorn! Luckily, that hasn't been a problem as of yet! All in all it was a successful workout and I always feel so great after finishing it. Even today when I didn't do all 7, I felt like I made progress and completed a quality workout. Long run planned for this weekend- the longest distance I've run to date...I am nervous but excited. Philadelphia is getting closer...