Time Trial: Take 2

3:02. Not even a 6:00 pace.

Three. Oh. Two. 

This was a complete disappointment.

Oh, hey. That's pretty much what happened. 

I've been so stressed over when/where I was going to do this trial that I didn't do enough planning on how I was going to execute it. It really wasn't until this morning that I knew for sure that the trial would even happen due to weather chaos. 

I had tentative plans on where I'd actually be doing the 800m, but really didn't plan out anything about how or where I'd be doing the 70mm or 200m "warm-ups". I didn't review my assigned paces or gameplan how to execute them. That, obviously, bit me in-run.

When I arrived, the temps were okay, but humidity was a little high for my taste. The worst part was the wind. Sitting in my car, watching the flags blow around, I could hear the gusts. 

Warm-up: met up with Birgit for an easy 1.5mi out, dropped a few mini cones on the side of path to help give me visual cues for the 200s

Strides: didn't even think about pace on these, just a "go fast"; felt like they ended really quickly and I never got up to feeling like I needed/wanted to them to end

200s: no idea about pacing on these, just kind of ran 'em; relied on watch instead of the cones I'd dropped because it was pitch-black (except for my flashlight) and I couldn't see much off the path

Took a 7min rest (5-10 prescribed), stretched, tried to remember where I was supposed to start the 800, and ended up just deciding to go for it on the next straight shot I found

800: 

• felt good enough for the first 200
• HATED the mental struggle of not knowing how far I was into it/how my pace was (I had no way to seeing my splits due to how my watch works, so there was zero opportunity for any corrections)
• started wanting to slow by the 400m mark, letting myself think I was on-pace or maybe even ahead of it
• hit a major headwind between 400-600m and just felt like giving up; I didn't completely give up, but I certainly wasn't feeling strong
• forced myself to up my effort for the last 200m, drawing on my confidence that I have a strong kick and that 200m is NOT that far

Cooldown: finished the 800 feeling dead; I didn't need to sit down or hold onto anything, but still walked a minute and a half before doing a slooooow jog

Again, because of my watch setup, I had no idea how it went until I ended the workout and went back and reviewed things. This was probably for the best, because here's how it shook out: 

Bad Things

• It wasn't even a 3:00 time trial. It was a 3:02. 
• I didn't hit a SINGLE split

Good Things

• Second fastest 800m ever, and the other one was on a downhill part of a race... 
• Didn't get injured

Mitigating Factors

Coach asked us to give him some commentary about things that may have affected our runs when we reported our times. This felt like a bit of "excuse making", but, at the same time, there are a LOT of things that affected my time.

• new location: though the river is one of my normal running places, the last time I ran it in the dark was probably a year ago; I wasn't familiar with the sidewalks, landmarks, or anything
• total lack of planning: I didn't know what my 200m splits were SUPPOSED to be until I created the table above... which was AFTER my time trial
• week-long anxiety about where/when I was doing this
• false start yesterday
• no in-run pacing information
• no focus: I was pretty much in a "just get it done" mindset

and the biggest one:

• running solo

I had Birgit for my warm-up, and some other friends who were running various paces and mileages in the vicinity, but, for the entirety of my speedwork, I was completely alone. This hasn't happened in.... well, just about ever. The last time I can remember doing speedwork solo was mile repeats on the treadmill when I was pregnant (~2 years ago), and, even then, I had people around me 'cause I was at a gym. I knew my teammates helped, but, man, I had no idea HOW much. 

By 7am, I'd talked to my coach. It made me feel pretty good that he used five "u"s when saying wind had a "huge" impact. Based on the fact that I've been rocking the rest of my training, he said "let's assume you hit 2:40 and have you hit 89-90s for your 400s next week". 

Um, what?

I can't say that I agree with it, but I'm trusting my coach. We'll use the 400s as more of a time trial than the 800 was to come up with a better indication of what my mile goal should be. This was the first bad run I've had this training cycle (and, honestly, in quite awhile), so, in the mean time, I'm just going to try to 

shake it off
(this also happens to be one of my kid's favorite songs right now)