Yasso 800's...It's What's for Dinner

So last night I put on my big girl pants and hit the track.  Again.  This week's workout was Yasso 800's.  Apparently if you do 10 of them in a row that is supposed to be a good predictor of your marathon time.  Although I've also read that you should add 5 - 7 minutes to your Yasso 800 time.  Apparently that gives you a better approximation of your marathon time.  Whatever the case, if any of that is true then last nights track session was a real ego boost. 

This was my first 800.  My last looked exactly the same.  The middle ones went:  3:03, 3:04, 3:06, 3:03, 3:03 & 3:04.  I'm nothing if not consistent, ha ha.  So if I do the math and figure that my last two would be in the same area, according to Yasso's theory + say 5 minutes, that would mean that I have a 3:10 marathon in me.

3:10.  Holy. Frig.  My brain can't even process that so I'm not even going to try right now.  Instead, I'm going to enjoy the fact, that even though I so wanted to quit after the 5th one, I stuck it out and finished.   I channeled my inner Pre and sucked it up.  Listening to old school rap, cranked, also helped.  I had House of Pain's "Jump Around" on repeat.  I may or may not have been hand dancing and flashing gangsta signs.  Just like I may or may not know all the words. 

There may have been a bit of bribery involved as well.  I told myself that if I did all 8 of them, then I could have a big bowl of my new favourite thing.  Chocolate cherry "ice cream" (there is no ice or cream in it...I'm sneaky like that!).   I think I've finally gotten the recipe right but I'll have to test it a few more times just to make sure.  And then I'll post it. 

Thankfully today was a rest day for me so I got to sleep in.  Tomorrow we are back at it, heading up to Bolton for a ride.  It's going to be an amazing weekend weather wise so we are going to take full advantage of it and get outside!

What have you got planned for this weekend? 

All Aboard the Pain Train

With a little more than 4 weeks till Scotia, I have been putting in some pretty hard miles.  And it's just going to get tougher over the next couple of weeks.  I've got my but firmly planted on the pain train apparently.  What's strange is that I'm actually kind of enjoying the ride.

I'm beginning to think I'm a bit of a weirdo.  Who else gets excited when they see that their club workout is Mile Repeats?  Apparently I do.  Perhaps all that triathlon racing has upped my discomfort level a few notches, which is good because I'm going to need it over these next few weeks.

This is the Master Plan:

That is a whole lot of fast and hard running.  I know my body can take it as long as I get my recovery in.  I just have to work at training my brain to deal with it.  I've gotten a whole lot better than I used to be but I still have my "I don't wanna / I can't" moments.  Like last Thursday.  My plan called for 4x1 mile repeats within a 13km run.  I did a nice warm up, got to the track and started my repeats.  After the second one, I felt like I was mentally done.  I managed to talk myself into a 3rd one.  The 4th one however, didn't happen.  I mentally couldn't face it.  Even though I felt fine physically, I had mentally checked out.   Normally I get annoyed with myself when I do this but this time around, I didn't.  Sometimes your brain just doesn't have it and you have to be ok with that (a challenge for me most days).

The act of training is not only about training your body but training your mind as well.  Just like your body, your mind also has it's overload point.  Sometimes you need to learn to push through that and sometimes you just have to say "Screw it, today is not my day."  It's a fine balance that I'm clearly still trying to figure out.

Tonight I'll be back at the track tackling Yasso 800's.  8 of them.  That's more than I've ever done before.  I think the most I've done has been 5 so this will be a challenge.  I hope I'm done before it gets dark, ha ha.



Do you like track workouts?  Have you ever done Yasso 800's?