Thursday, August 27, 2009

Sneaky Speedwork - And A Great Playlist

As the events of this morning unfolded, I knew that I could get my long run in this weekend. So, I can get my last weekday run in - a 4 miler - either today or tomorrow.

I decided to go for a late afternoon run today. Since it was 90-some-odd degrees outside, I hit the gym. And since I didn't do any speedwork sessions this week (I was trying to squish my longer runs in during the week, so I took it easy), I decided that I should do some speedwork.

The plan - 4.5 miles of "pyramid intervals". Set the jog speed on the treadmill to an 11:00/mile pace and the run speed to an 8:00/mile pace. Warm up for 3/4 mile and then run intervals of 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and 1 mile with quarter mile recovery jogs in between. Finish with a half mile cool down.

I did great today! It felt good - and even that mile-long interval 3 miles into the run didn't beat me up too hard.

One thing that helped was my playlist. It went almost perfectly with the run. My warmup was to "Overload" by Sugababes, "Waterloo" by ABBA (I will be working for a Swedish company in a few weeks...) and "Salamati" by Arash. As I started my first interval, the Theme from Rocky came on which definitely gave me a lift. After that was "Lose Yourself" by Eminem which took me through the second interval. The third interval started during "Pump It" by the Black Eyed Peas and then was run mostly through "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin.

As I started my mile-long interval, the Theme to Chariots of Fire started. Then "Fire" by Jimi Hendrix and I finished off the mile to "Desire" by U2.

Awesome tunes to keep me going at an 8:00/mile pace!

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