Cruise Intervals . . . Marathon Style
Tough solo cruise intervals workout last night in the beautiful town of Waltham around the Bentley athletic complex. The scheduled workout was 10 miles alternating 5:08/5:30. The wind at the track was tough last night and running into that headwind for 40 laps may have just mentally tucked it to me. I was a little concerned that I was alone on this windy day so mental toughness was going to 90% of this workout. I typically do cruise intervals like 400m on/200m off or hard straights cruise turns. Well this is marathon training. I know I have the fitness for this volume at these paces but sometimes I wimp out in the wind (See Boston 07, Chicago 06).
1.5 mile Bentley Road Loop. Cruise intervals shooting for 5:10 hard/5:30 easy.
1. 7.44
2. 8.16
3. 7.46
4. 8.14
5. 7.52
6. 8.11
7. 7.45
10.5 miles in 55:52.71
The wind was not fun out there and I fell asleep a little bit on the 3rd faster one. It was difficult to judge speed out there with no splits but I have had a really good ‘feel’ for my pace lately and even on the 3rd interval I had a feeling I was slow. The real failure was not doing anything about it. I came back nicely with good focus on the last two though. The workout took a great deal of time and the last two were done in very dark conditions. Finally we had a warm-workout day which I was thankful for because I had a good sweat going before the workout and I think I may have dehydrated myself a bit which was good. All of my prior endurance road workouts were done in cool conditions where fluids were no issue. I didn’t take any water but it was good to be soaked and feel what it was like to sweat outside again.
That's all I got.