Deceptively hard workouts

I had a workout on Monday that my coach gave me that kicked my butt. It was only 45 minutes long but I hadn't done much speed work yet this year, and this workout let me know that.

Here is how it read:

Warm up 10, then do 4 x 5 minutes as follows: 10 seconds at 95%, 50 seconds at 80% - continue this throughout the 5 minutes. Take 2 min easy jog recovery between each 5. Warm down 10

It looked innocent enough but after finishing the 2nd interval I was telling myself I couldn't wait until it was over!

I also had to share a bike workout I had last week that I actually had to print out and keep in front of me on the trainer just to make sure I was doing it correctly.

Form ride – warm up 10 minutes
Aero-hover drill: Count 80 for the drill
Then sit and remain in big gear for 1 minute
Then gear medium and do 1 leg drill – 40 rotations on each leg
Then 1 minute in same gear working the rotation
Then easy for 2 minutes,
Warm down 10

All this was x8! It went fast because I was completely focused on keeping track of either what number interval or which part of the interval I was on.

Complaining aside, the workouts definitely go by faster when it is broken up like this. It's one of the reasons I enjoy having Suzan for a coach so much.