Speedwork - Ladders

I think last night's speedwork session, officially called ladders, should be renamed "To Hell and Back."


I get to blame my husband's college coach for being introduced to this workout last night.  Hubby decided that it would be something that would benefit us both in our upcoming races.  He's training to win the Tower of Terror 10-miler the last weekend in September, and you all already know I'm training to break 4 hours at the RnR St. Louis marathon in October.

We started with our usual 1.5 mile warm up on the crushed limestone trail around the high school.  Really helps loosen up the legs, and it's fun to get to run with our BRC friends.  The warm-up lap is the one time we really all run together, rather than spread out across all different speeds.

We then started the sprints on the track.  Each sprint was followed by a 400m recovery lap.  Numbers in ( ) were my splits.
400m (1:43)
800m (3:36)
1200m (5:24)
1200m (5:20)
800m (3:28)
400m (1:35)

By the time I finished the second 1200m sprint, my legs were starting to feel a little weak.  After the second 800m, I had JellO for quads.  I'm still not sure how I managed to squeak out that last 400m sprint at the pace I did - this was my 2nd fastest 400m sprint ever.

Finished up with a 1.5 mile recovery lap with the group.  Really didn't want to go out for this, but in the end it's good that we did it to move all the acid out of the muscles.

As hard as this workout was, I'm really happy with it.  I'm fully expecting this morning's 3 mile recovery run to be on the slow side.