Fast and early

Starting my last week of training for the season, I have essentially 3 or 4 track workouts left before Nationals.  I am on the track only every other day now.  

I never have set my alarm to get up on training days.  It's automatic, but, I don't always get up at the right time ... usually too early.   This morning I woke up and thought, is it time?   Looked at the clock and thought, "damn ... 2:20am".   I couldn't get back to sleep and got up about 4, had some juice and news, and hit the track about 4:45.   So, I did my workout on 2 hrs sleep.  I'll enjoy an afternoon nap today.

About 75º and very humid at 4:45am on the Dean Hayes track.   There is a heat index advisory for the next 3 days with temperatures in the mid 90sº and dewpoints in the mid 70sº - producing a heat index of 104ishº.  No option but to workout early.  

I like these brief intense workouts.  These 95% event runs are really good for practicing the last 200m of my race.  Like a guitarist or pianist that practices music for each hand independently, that's what I'm doing.  Practicing the last 200m and then the first 200m.  

I took a second off the first 200m of my last workout and intended to run a negative split 400m:  29/28.  I was a bit fast on the first 200 and it came out to be even splits - 28.5/28.5.   My ideal race splits for a PR would be about 26.3/28.5.   So, after my 400m, I practiced 200s at around 26 from blocks.   They felt pretty hard, as would anything after a 57 sec 400.  Actually, my 400m was just a fraction under 57 sec ... but I'm going to call it 57.  I felt the last 200m was pretty strong, 14/14.5 100m splits.  

600m warmup, stretches, drills 

Puma spikes on 

400m - 57 (28.5/28.5) 

3 x 200m - 26, 26.5, 27

Next workout, I'll decrease my first 200 split to 28 and see if I can maintain 28 or 28.5 for the second 200m.  It's a fine line.  Just .50 sec too fast on the first 200m can result in a 1 to 2 second loss of speed on the whole 400m.  I think my splits for my last race were like 25.8 / 30.8.   

Still trying to decide if I want to stay and run the 200m.   I should probably try some fresh 200s at 95% to see how they feel this week.

Weight is good: 139.8 lbs

One last good resistance workout tomorrow.