speed WORK

So I have learned many things this week, one that stands out is a "little information can be dangerous!"

So the story unfolds like this:

We found a great running group a few months ago through some contacts at another group. This group is called 'Roadkill'. They are fantastic! They meet once a week at a track and do speed work together. We have had several opportunities to go, and what we have learned has been so very helpful. Unfortunately I am not always able to go because of the timing and the kids, and how life in general just gets busy. What we have been doing is mimicking what we have learned as well as reading more, with a better understanding of what it all is.

I now know what a 100m stride (pick up) is, and what it is used for- to get the heart rate up before you try to run faster for longer. A 400m is 1 lap around the track. 4 of those is a mile (I can count on a good day). Rest is when you stop and catch your breath (for me that is collapsing onto the ground so I can concentrate fully on breathing), a small break between sets. My belief is that all this is getting the body ready to sustain itself along the runs at a faster pace for a longer amount of time.

We have experienced many different instructions along the way from the coach of this group (he is totally awesome, and doesn't laugh at me, which is nice), but it always begins with a 1 mile warm up, 4x100m, break, then something incredible-the speed work, then a 1mile cool down.
With this small bit of knowledge, when we cannot get to the track where the group runs we find a track in our area and we pretend to know what we are doing. So this Tuesday night we headed out to the track by my place and this is what I did to us:

1 mile warm up (thanks to G for not letting me cut this short)
4x100m
400m with a 3 min break
800m with a 3 min break
1200m with a 3 min break (I was wavering here about if this was too much? we decided it wasn't?)
800m with a 3 min break
400m with a 3 min break
1 mile cool down (again, thanks to G for pushing me to finish whole)

An hour and 15 min later, we were done.

We have our BIG run in just over a week. I'm so hoping that this is something that would resemble a proper roadkill work out as I'm also hoping this will help us along to our goal of a good finish (that would be without injury). I also remember that in the book "Run like a mother" one of the authors talks about doing a couple of mile sets, and I have heard talk of things called ladders? So I am very excited for the day when I have the time to get back to roadkill, and in the mean time I will try not to kill us as we try to keep up the speed WORK.

Does any one have any favorite speed work outs?

Next, still have to find out about hills? and hill WORK.

Have a great week everyone.

Nicole