Whew! I did my first Yasso 800’s on Sunday! I’m so glad that it’s in the books. To be perfectly honest, I was so nervous about running this new workout. This is a marathon (or half marathon) predictor kind of workout. So, I was worried that this one would tell me I was absolutely crazy to even think a 2 hour, 30 minute half marathon at the Rock n Roll San Diego Half Marathon this June is possible. Thankfully, the workout went better than expected! Before we get to that, let’s look back on this week…

After hitting all three runs in week 3, I thought I’d be up for pushing the intervals in week 4. So, on Tuesday, I headed out on my 4 mile run with a plan. Run 30 seconds, walk 90 seconds for miles 1 and 4. Then, I’d switch it up to run 30 seconds, walk 60 seconds in miles 2 and 3. Mile 1 went well. I even finished in under 12 minutes! I was huffing and puffing. However, I kept it going all the way to the end of mile 1. So, in mile 2, I felt okay to make the switch. It always feels a little scary to shorten the walk breaks. But, I knew I could do it. Mile 2 got off to a great start. I was even under a 12 minute per mile pace by the middle of mile 2! By 1.75 miles, I started to feel a slight twinge of pain in my lower back. I’ve had this happen before. It caused me a little worry. I started thinking about whether or not I’d continue with the 60 second walk breaks. My first thought was to continue through the end of mile 2 and switch back in mile 3. I finished mile 2 at 23 minutes, 34 seconds. However, I was slowing. By the start of mile 3, I was not only dealing with some lower back pain, but my knee was hurting a little as well. I kept the 60 second walk breaks because the pain was largely hitting me during the walk breaks. I felt better running. Both my running and my walking were slowing as a result of the pain quite naturally. Somewhere between 2.25 and 2.50 miles, the pain started leaving. I think the slowing helped. The bummer is that it was hurting my finish time. By the end of mile 3, I was at 35 minutes, 55 seconds. It was my slowest mile. I decided to switch back to the 90 second walk breaks for mile 4. Let’s face it, I wasn’t on a particularly fast run anyways. I finished 4 miles in 48 minutes, 30 seconds. That was 1 second slower than my last run on the Thursday before (when I was using 90 second walk breaks the entire way). Oh well. Slow runs are better than missed runs. Right?

Sadly, I didn’t get out for a run on Thursday, as planned. I won’t go into all the details on this blog. However, it was a day where I needed to be home for the wife. There are legitimate reasons to miss a run. Thursday was one of them. My wife sacrifices a lot of time for me to be able to run. I think she does so knowing that, if she really needed me to be home for her, I would be. So, I’m not at all upset about missing this run. These kinds of things happen.

In the title, I mention flexibility as the key to success this week. I said that because I needed to switch my plans of running my first Yasso 800’s on Saturday with a gym day instead. I simply didn’t wake up early enough to run.

Instead of running in the morning, I had a half marathon of my own. My wife and I started watching the first season of Fuller House on Friday night. Then, we finished the season on Saturday morning. If you are fan of Full House, there is no reason you’d not like Fuller House. I really liked the cast…especially the new cast.

As I watched the show, I knew I had a decision to make. I decided to use the afternoon wisely and was able to make a gym workout. Since I knew I’d be doing speed work on the track the next day, I took out the treadmill from this workout. Instead, it served as a new baseline workout. It is the first time I’ve made it to the gym in this workout cycle. I really want this to be the first of many. This workout was a good one. I was decent on the elliptical machine and had very little problems on the other machines. All of the machines pushed me a little. So, that was good. I really need consistency in the gym so I can begin to increase the weights. For now, it was a good workout and I left wanting to do this again!

On Sunday, I finally made it out to the track for my very first attempt at the Yasso 800’s. As I said in the first paragraph, I was nervous about this workout. It was new and a race predictor kind of thing. If my times were really slow with only 4 800’s on the calendar, I’d be seriously worried about the goals I set. I’ll get into this a little more on Wednesday as I reflect on what I learned doing these. For now, let’s say, it was a learning experience for me. Each repeat gets harder (which I knew going into it). If you’re looking for the progression. My first 800 is on the top right. The second one is right below it. Third, below that. Fourth below the picture of me. As you can see, I got slower each time. I tried different ways of completing each 800. What did each 800 say?

4:55 – Marathon Finish (4 hours, 55 minutes), Half Marathon Finish (2 hours, 22 minutes, 30 seconds)

5:34 – Marathon Finish (5 hours, 34 minutes), Half Marathon Finish (2 hours, 42 minutes)

5:38 – Marathon Finish (5 hours, 38 minutes), Half Marathon Finish (2 hours, 46 minutes)

5: 49 – Marathon Finish (5 hours, 49 minutes), Half Marathon Finish (2 hours, 49 minutes, 30 seconds)

I’ll get more in depth on Wednesday, but I like what the times are are saying. Now, I’m still working to get to hold 10 800’s in 5:10 or quicker to meet my goal. I still have 6 Yasso 800’s on the calendar. They will only get tougher from here as I add more of them each time. However, the hope is that I will not only improve my times over 800 meters, but that I will be able to do so more times.

It’s on to week  5! This is also a race week. This week will end with…

The Knott’s Berry Farm Coaster Run 10K! I’m so looking forward to running in another race again. Brooke and I ran the 5K version of this race back on 2013. So, I’m looking forward to running through Knott’s Berry Farm once again. It’s a strange kind of a 10K, though. Most of the first 5K is through the theme park and water park. Then, the last 5K is through the surrounding streets. That said, I’m not planning on PRing this race at all. I want to have some fun in the first 5K. Then, try for negative splits over the last 5K. We shall see if it works out.