Track Tuesday: Surprising 400s

Official track workouts last from April 1 - September 30 for my running club, held every Tuesday night at 6:30 at a local high school.  In the "off season,"  a small group of dedicated runners (read: obsessed) meet to continue to do speed work, but the time changes to 6 PM.  Tonight was the first 6 PM practice and it felt so much earlier than 6:30.  It also took me twice as long to drive there so I was late.  However, I am late a lot of the time, so it didn't bother me too much.

I was surprised to see my track coach there, as usually the man that coaches the other runners runs the off-season workouts.  Tonights workout: 400s with 200 recovery.  I don't know the last time I ran a decent speed workout.  May maybe?  April?  It had been a long time.

Due to not having much light, we were only running 8 400s, which sounded good to me.  The less, the better.  400s are painful, a dead-out spring for a 1/4 of a  mile.  Usually we do a group of guys and a group of girls/slow guys, but tonight there were only 8 or so of us there to do the workout, so we all went together.  The group was the majority of the speedy guys, me, a slower guy, and one other lady, P, who I've done multiple workouts with over the past 2 years.

The repeats started ok, and then I surprised myself and was able to get faster with each one.  I kept thinking, "who is this new person, running a sub-6 pace like its nothing?  I'm sure I'll burn-out soon."  But the burn-out never came.  Instead, the opposite thing happened: I gained more speed.  My splits were:

#1 - 1:29
#2 - 1:27
#3 - 1:26
#4 - 1:26
#5 - 1:25
#6 - 1:24
#7 - 1:22
#8 - 1:20

I left the track with far more confidence than I started with.  I still am amazed at how well all of my runs are going.  It is like I've been fixed....or so I can at least hope.