Wednesday Night Speed Session - 2/18/09

Tonight's workout was 6 x 600m intervals on the E. 6th St. track. Coach Kate posted on the RUNNYC Facebook book page that the group spent a lot of time, when the track was covered in ice, working on our strength with tempo runs and fartleks on the West Side Highway. Tonight, it was time to work on getting our legs turning over a bit faster with 3k pace intervals. After our usual warmup (see link to map below) from Paragon and some stretching, it was time to begin. Kevin, my usual pacer, was taking the night off due to a sore achilles so Brad was pacing the 7:00/mile (5k pace) group. Here are the splits for the 6 intervals:
2:44
2:35
2:29
2:24
2:28
2:29

Each interval was followed by a 200m recovery. Brad led the first 2 intervals and then asked if I, and the other runner in our group wanted to lead. I took the 3rd interval and the other runner took the 4th. The other runner had to stop at after thr 4th interval because her knee started to hurt so I took the last 2. While I was leading, Brad was right on my shoulder telling me I was right on pace, my form looked good, etc.... I never got that kind of attention when I was running with the NYRR group. The Nike pacers really take the time to talk to you about your training, what races you have coming up, and how to approach your race. I'm sure as the weather warms up and the group gets bigger, some of that attention will wane but for now I'm really enjoying it.

Here is the link I promised to our usual warmup and cooldown: