Fast 5-miler with intervals, strength training

Today was a good hard 5-miler mixed in with 3x800s, and 2x400s. It was at a fast pace.

First I'll mention the ab workout and the other warm-ups. I hit the elliptical for a 10-minute session, then over to the free weight area to do the hanging ab straps, which are absolutely killer.

You basically hang with your arms in the straps and then lift up your legs to your chest. If you keep your legs straight out while raising them it targets the lower abs more. If you just raise your legs with them pointing down, it's less on the lower (but still gets 'em) and more on the rest of the abdominals. I did six sets overall mixing in the different exercises, trying to get up to 10 in a set on most, but not always.

Then I hit the ab crunch weight machine and did three sets of 12 for the upper and mid-abs, left and right obliques. I'm digging this new routine for my core. I feel it's making me stronger overall.

I saw a woman jumping rope and when she was finished, I gave it a try. Back in high school we used to do 500 jumps as a way to warmup for basketball practice. I probably did about 50 before calling it quits today.

On the treadmill, I wanted to go fairly hard, especially since I had two Christmas parties on Friday, so I wanted to burn some calories.

The first mile was done fairly comfortably at 7:58. The second mile I initially bumped it up to about 7:41/mile pace and mixed in two 400 meter sprints as fast as 6:40/mile pace. Mixed in between these intervals were "breaks" at 7:20/mile pace.

Then I wanted to sustain that quick pace longer. I decided to do three sets of 800 meters at 6:40 pace with 1-2 minute "breaks" at 8:00 mile pace. Whew, that was tough.

During the final mile, I was feeling it and dropped down to about 8:34 so I could recover for a few minutes, then busted out the last 0.6 miles at 7:30/mile pace.

Overall the 5-miler was finished at 37:20 or 7:28/mile pace. I was pretty happy with that, especially getting some quality time at 6:40/mile pace during a 5-mile training run.

As I mentioned in a previous post, if I can stay healthy and injury-free, I don't think it's out of the question to consistently train next year in the mid to high 6-minute mile pace and maybe bust out a race or two faster than 6-minute-mile pace. Running in the 18s for a 5-K would be nice for a soon-to-be 40-year-old.

With this in mind, I thought this Runners World Quote of the Day was appropriate ...

"It is amazing how much you can progress week after week, month after month, year after year if you allow for gradual training increases."

Bob Glover, The Runner's Handbook

Happy running!