Tuesday, May 25th 2010: 7 miles at the track. I went to the high school track for the first time in many moons. I wanted to see how I could do with some Yasso 800's.
The Yasso 800's were conceptualized by Bart Yasso (who we met a few weeks ago). His theory is that if you can run ten 800's (two times around the track, with a slower recovery lap between each 800), this would give you an idea of your possible marathon finish time - because each time for the 800 should coincide with your marathon finish time. For example, since I want to run a marathon in 4 hours, I should be doing my 800's in about 4 minutes.
I actually felt pretty good at the track, and kept an eye on my pace during each 800 since I have a tendency to start too fast then fatigue by the end. The more I did, the better I got at keeping an even pace. The times for my 800's were 3:42, 3:47, 3:56, 3:51, 3:51, 3:49, 3:48, and 3:42. I was still feeling good enough that I think I could have done two more if I had the time. Hopefully this is a good sign for the upcoming marathon.
Wednesday, May 25th 2010: Drive to San Diego. Accompanied by large quantities of Diet Mt. Dew.
Thursday, May 26th 2010: 2.2 miles @ 10:40 per mile pace. Mel and I made a jaunt around San Diego and happened to come across the LDS San Diego temple. It's beautiful. Or so I hear. We saw more scaffolding than temple.
Friday, May 27th 2010: Lots and LOTS of walking at Sea World.
Saturday, May 28th 2010: 5 miles @ 10:25 per mile pace. I didn't want to get lost in an unfamiliar California neighborhood so I made sure to stay on the same road and not make any turns. This was a miserable strategy because I arrived at a hill big enough to bring tears to my eyes. I'm certain that the previous day's Mountain Dew and Hostess Donuts did me no favors in getting up the hill.
The only thing I saw worth taking a picture of was this freeway overpass that I ran across as my legs burned and I fought back tears. It's highly likely that my tears would have been green. And carbonated.
"A marathon is like life with its ups and downs, but once you've done it you feel that you can do anything."
Anonymous
i'm a huge believer of those 800s and can't wait till i can do them again. tom goes to the track on thursday at 6:15 if you ever want to join him and ben.
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