Another great night of sleep. I will be going into work tonight for my date night (when Paul is out of town I go out without him. Tonight I planned on working some, which helped me be ok with sleeping more the last two nights).
Was so happy to see a great group of ladies this morning: Alli, Josse, Jamie, and MacK. We kept the miles under 8 min pace, after the first mile. I was concerned about the pace for our pregnant contingency, but Jamie still has some spring to her step and she doesn't look preggie at all (yet).
Plan for workout: a Little Big Workout (the format of a big workout but without enough total hard mileage to make it a true big workout - I would say that 8 miles or more of hard qualifies). This was my first time doing a tempo/ VO2 max combo workout. The plan was a 4 mile tempo at 6:20-6:30 (CV pace?), a one mile or more rest, and then 4 800's at VO2Max and .25 mile rest in between.
We warmed up for 4.97 and I tried to convince the ladies to do a tempo workout with me. The plan was that I would go out 2 miles then turn around and they would do 1.5 then turn around and I would try to catch them.
Mile 1 - 6:11, not shabby, a little fast though
Mile 2 - 6:20, just right,
Mile 3 - 6:26, this mile really stunk, felt like the fifth or sixth mile,
Mile 4 - 6:17, much better.
I was not sure how their tempo went, but toward the end of mile 4 I saw what looked like an adult tying his/her shoe, and a child standing right next to the crouched person. Turns out MacK had some strain in her muscle, and they stopped a couple of times for stretching and Josse was doing an impromptu massage on the side of the road for her. I finished the 4th mile and then didn't turn around back to them because a portapotty was right ahead of me, so I went into it. I figured they would understand when they saw me go inside. I was finishing up in the pot when Josse asked, "How'd it go?" I am thinking, "Is she talking to me? Is she asking about my bathroom experience?" She qualified "The tempo." Funny.
The four mile tempo felt like a six or seven mile tempo. I tried to not think about the 800's.
We hit the first recovery mile at 8:09, then another mile at 7:38 (there was a stop for gatorade in this mile, by this time it was Jamie, MacK and Josse and I, I think Ally had to get home by some specific time). Noone else was game for the 800's so I started each one and looped back to the group.
1 - 3:03, this stunk so bad, the second half was so hard to keep pace, 2:38 rest (.26)
2 - 2:57, much better, but the second half was much harder than the first half, 2:52 rest (.28)
3 - 2:58, 3:35 rest (.34) A longer rest to get to the right starting point, then a false start,
4 - 2:54, Josse started this one with me and hung with me for quite a bit of it, I was very happy to be down to the times I should have run all of them in
All had positive splits. I think doing VO2max after a tempo is absolutely killer, and it is probably really good for marathon training. This workout kicked my butt, but I want to do this type of format in my spring/summer training, adding miles to the tempo and more VO2max too.
Finished up with Josse, I was surprised to see so many miles on my watch.
Yeah! Smashed my goal of doing 60 miles this week!
I drank Endurox R4 after I got home, and now I have used it several times, and I do think that it is a good recovery drink. | 
