Mile Repeats. Classic.

I think mile repeats are one of the most classic distance running workouts out there. I'd say they are most common to do on a track, but that isn't always available or is just boring sometimes. In grade school, we used to do the mile repeats around the school and church. In high school, we would do them on the track during track season, but around the school grounds on grass during cross country season. And in college, we usually did the mile repeats at various parks in the area to train for cross country.

My most memorable mile repeat workout was during the summer before senior year of college when I ran with Emily at Sugarcreek Park near Dayton. It's an awesome park to run at and has a few different trails. The one we usually did is a tough, hilly 3.1 mile loop. But we also had a 1 mile loop that was on a dirt trail and fairly flat with the exception of one smaller-ish hill near the end. Emily and I met a few times there that summer, including probably 2 or 3 times for mile repeats (they were on our training plan almost every weekend - Monday fun!). But there was one workout specifically that I remember just went plain awesome for both of us. We felt great and were hitting our times as planned. Naturally I just went back to my running log to see what my times were - 6:34, 6:23, 6:28, and 6:29. This was on 8/3/2009. I was pumped because I had done the same workout on the same loop 2 weeks prior with times closer to 6:50.

But that's enough nostalgia for now, because here's what's happening in August of 2013. Mac and I met to do a mile repeat workout last night. My goal was to do them under 7 minutes. He was shooting for under 6.

We ran from my apartment to the lake and then a little more down the path to get in a warm up of about 2 miles. Apparently there are mile markers along the lakefront path but I've never even seen them and we couldn't find one to start at so we improvised. Since Mac was going to be faster, he took the Garmin. We started each one together and when he got to 1 mile, he stopped and then I finished running until I got to him. In between each, we took a 5 minute break of walking, stretching, and getting water.

We were both very pleased with our times! I did my 3 mile repeats in 6:45, 6:40, and 6:38. I was really happy that I got faster on each one instead of slowing down like I have a tendency to do. I really thought that second one was going to be over 7 minutes because I felt like I was crawling so I was pleasantly surprised when I ended up faster. It was also kind of cool not knowing exactly how far into it I was, although I found myself looking at my watch and counting down approximately how long I had left. Mac had an awesome workout too. He did 4 mile repeats and got faster each one, ending around 5:40.

After we finished the workout, we just walked back to my apartment. I'd guess total mileage was 6 miles. (I did a mile cool down while Mac did his 4th mile repeat.) We also ran into Steph and Danny heading out for an evening walk along the lake since it was such a nice night!

I didn't have my phone or iPod with me so I didn't take any actual pictures during our run and just had to use one of my stock photos of the lake/city. This one was taken last Saturday afternoon on a walk. I was thinking last night that I wish I had a camera because we basically had this view of the city, but it was dusk so the sky looked pretty and the city was all lit up already.

Have you done any workouts that specifically stick out in your mind?