Workout Write-Up: Cruise Mile Repeats

This week’s Workout Write-Up comes from Matt O’Connor. Matt is training for the US Olympic Marathon trials, which he will be running in Los Angeles this February.

Workout
Cruise Mile Repeats

Type
Endurance and speed workout.

Details
When I run this workout I do 7-8 x 1 mile at lactate threshold (slightly slower than 10K race pace, “comfortably hard”) with 90 seconds to 2 minutes of recovery in between repeats. The number of reps can be adjusted based on your fitness level. Workouts at lactate threshold focus on delaying the onset of when lactic acid builds in the muscles due to the body’s inability to process it. To make sure I’m staying at the correct level of intensity, I prefer to perform this workout on a relatively flat course that has minimal turns. Forest Park is an excellent venue to perform this workout. Additionally, I have had success with this workout on the roads by Bishop Dubourg High School. My coach, Ryan Bak, introduced me to this workout and has included it, at least once, in every training block. This workout is a good confidence booster for me as I have hit it more times than not.

When is a good time to perform this workout?
Typically, I will perform a variation of this workout 2-3 times during a training block. Most often, I’ll perform this workout during the speed development phase of a block as well as the race preparation phase of a block.

Last time I ran this workout and how did it go?
I successfully completed this workout mid October. My lactate threshold range is 4:55-5:04 pace per mile. With that said, I have a tendency to want to run every workout on the fast end of the designated pace. For this workout, my goal was to run every repeat at or below 4:55 pace. I was able to accomplish that as my splits were 4:53, :55, :52, :51, :54, :49, :52, :50. The reason for variability in my splits was because I completed this workout on a three mile flat loop course in Forest Park. I was pleased with how this workout went. Being that this workout was relatively early in my long marathon build up, I was happy to see my fitness was this strong this early.