Tuesday Repeats

1600m repeats on the menu today. Last Tuesday I strung together 4 of them (miles), albeit somewhat sloppily, on the Capital Crescent Trail outside my office. This morning I was determined to do them on a track.

I've been to Cardozo Senior High School before, but when I showed up around 6:40 this morning the gates to the athletic field hadn't been opened yet. Two other runners waited there with me for 5 or 6 minutes until it became clear that no one was going to let us in (a security guard normally unlocks the gates at 6:30).

After the two other runners took off, I stood there for a minute, contemplating what to do. I could just go home. I could improvise a tempo run on the roads somewhere. I knew of a 1/4-mile stretch of trail down in Rock Creek Park that I could use for some repeats. I decided on none of the above and just began running north, hoping I'd stumble upon either Banneker or Roosevelt High School. I wasn't exactly sure where either school was, but eventually I came across Roosevelt (corner of Georgia and Upshur) and saw runners on the track. Yes!

Once I found the entrance I stretched out for a minute and started the first repeat. Last week told me I could reasonably expect to run 6:15s or so, so I aimed for 93-4 seconds per lap.

Things went smoothly and I felt pretty great out there. Only trouble is some right forefoot soreness (flared up on Sunday) that felt better once I started running faster. I'll keep an eye on it. Since I'd run further than I'd planned during track reconnaissance, I bargained myself down to 3 repeats. They went 6:11-6:13-6:10, with 400m recoveries in 2:30ish. For each repeat I crossed the 1200m mark in exactly 4:40, so the variation was in the final lap. Aerobically the fast efforts were not much of a stretch, and my legs got more fatigued than my lungs. This is where I think these efforts should be, and I'm happy with the way this morning turned out. Wrapped up the repeats with some barefoot laps and strides.

Not measured, but I'll call it a 9 mile effort, 1:10:08. Now that I know where Roosevelt is I'll probably head there from now on.