Ugh, Yassos

So I had Yassos on my schedule again today.  And I was doing them alone.  And we have plans tonight with our neighbors, so the run absolutely had to be done before I went to work.  I set my alarm and then lollygagged at home for nearly an hour, dragging my feet, trying to find some excuse not to do them. 

Finally, I sucked it up and left the house.  I ran 1.5 agonizingly slow miles to the track.  I just felt like I had no pep and I was dreading the actual workout.

I got to the track and slowly talked myself through each one.  The first three were all 3-4 seconds too fast. 

But you're only as good as your slowest Yasso, right? 

Unfortunately, my last two were my slowest.  Yikes.  Both 4 seconds off.  That works out to 8 seconds per mile pace too slow, which is a much bigger gap than I'd like to see during half mile repeats. 

If I'd been able to reverse that, starting with the two slowest and then finishing with the three fastest, the workout would have been a big success in my mind, but in reality, I was seriously sucking wind.  I had a total difference of 8 seconds between my fastest and slowest repeats, which is more than it should be.  Ideally, I like to keep them all within 5 seconds if they can't all be right on pace. 

By the time I finished the first four, I told myself that I was halfway done, but in my mind, I was already thinking I'd maybe cut it short.  I started counting down the laps, thinking if I did the full workout, that would only be 8 more laps around the track.  A few steps into the fifth repeat, and I was already telling myself only 7.xx more laps. 

The fifth one was on pace and didn't feel quite as miserable as all the others.  So I told myself to at least do the sixth one so that I could match what I'd done last week on the treadmill.  Then if I really wanted to stop, at least I'd have done 75% of the workout. 

I managed to get in six (again, pretty much on pace) and then I told myself I really needed a seventh so that I'd have stepped it up at least one from what I did last week.  And at that point, only four more laps.  The seventh one was too slow (4 seconds) but it was over.  Then it was just a matter of doing one more.

By that time, since I'd dawdled so long at home, the track was completely deserted.  It was that magical time around 7:15 when everyone who uses the track is either done working out and at home getting ready for work, or just waking up to go work out. 

So I decided to mix it up and run the last one in the reverse direction on the track.  This always makes me paranoid, thinking someone (or worse, a group) will show up and then I'll have to run right at them or reverse direction in the middle of my repeat. 

But I told myself it was only for a few minutes.  And odds are if anyone came, they'd take a minute or two to get started, and maybe they'd be walkers in the outer lane.  So really, maybe I could do the entire last one backwards.  I failed to check my watch when I started, and it was showing total time instead of lap time, so after the first lap, I had no idea if I was on pace or off.  But the track was still empty, so I kept going. 

I tried so hard to push hard particularly on the very last straightaway, but the 8th and final repeat matched up exactly with the 7th, coming in at 4 seconds too slow. 

Oh well, it's done.  Next week will be treadmill Yassos on Monday at the gym near the closest big city to my folks (well, if 4,000 people counts as a big city, but big enough to have a Y that lets you buy a day pass!).  And then the next week ideally will be 10 Yassos at the track.  And then the final two weeks before the marathon will be some theoretical race pace work.  At least it's almost over.  One month and two days and I'll be done with marathon training for a lovely 4 months probably...