The Beginning of the Speed Cycle

We have already spent months on aerobic development.  The past month was hills and the beginning of leg speed work.   The next 4 weeks are all anaerobic development.  These weeks are a cycle of sprint workouts and interval workouts.  Today, I completed just my second interval workout.  It felt a little harder than the first, but it turned out to be a little faster.  It’s too early to know if the speed is coming, but today showed me that the earlier work is paying off.

Back in March I ran a fairly well attended 8K.  My pace was good and I felt good about my 5^th place in my age group.  Looking at today’s intervals I looked at my pace during the 5 full miles I measured at the track. Again, these are 400 meters at interval pace and 400 meters at a jog.  The average pace over the 5 miles measured was 7:03/mile, or 13 seconds per mile faster than my 8K race pace.  This was great evidence that the volume and intensity of the past few months are indeed paying off. 

If you are a beginning runner who is getting serious, let me put this progress in perspective.  My first club run was a 4 mile race in June of 2006.  I felt like I was going to die and my pace was 8:25/mile.  Now, just more than a year later, my hard training pace is just over 7 minutes per mile.  You can do it too.   As for my speed work, only time will tell.