Another Round of Early Morning Yasso 800s

I was out the door at 5am, and a light but steady rain was beating against my windshield as I made the 10 minute drive to the local high school track for my speed workout.  The radio was tuned to NPR, accompanied by the rhythmic swooshing of the windshield wipers.  That peacefulness would soon be interrupted by a routine I've grown to both love and hate:  Yasso 800s.

I arrived and got out of the car, and I actually felt a sensation I hadn't felt in a while, not since perhaps jumping into the Emerald Pool at the end of our mountain run last week:  cold.  It was still warm with temps in the 60s, but with the rain and also contrasting against this two week long (and counting) heat wave of sorts, it felt chilly.

As a result, I was anxious to begin my warm-up, and ran a mile on the track.  I could tell today was going to be tougher than last week, due primarily to not getting much sleep last night and the night before.   Just not feeling in sync, which could make concentration tough.

I tried something different this time, based on a sound and logical suggestion from Chuck:  alternate the direction each rep, so you're balancing out the turns on the track.  Made sense.  Perhaps because of that and maybe because I wasn't fully awake, my focus (and pace) slipped on the second rep when I went the other direction for the first time.  Still not bad though and other than that, pretty consistant.  Up to seven reps now and the splits are as follows:

3:04
3:12
3:02
3:04
3:03
3:03
2:59

Worth noting I was very sluggish on the 3:00 jogging in between each rep.  Past few times I've done this workout I was able to jog a lap and a third in between each one.  Was so slow on the in-between jogging today I only got in a little over one lap each time.

After that final rep, a bio break was desperately needed.  Last week, I tried to use the woods and was assaulted big time by deer flies and ran back to my car to get away from them instead. So, I decided it was best to just skip the cool down today.  Generally not a good idea to do that, but didn't have much choice.  Might do a few slow miles this afternoon to keep the legs loose, but will play that by ear.

Oh yeah, last night I updated the firmware on my Garmin 305.  It behaved fine this morning, which was really nice.  Time will tell if it's a bit more permanent.

Upper 60s, light rain.
Asics GT-2130, shorts.