Category Archives: hell

Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell…

Start time: 1/18/11, 4:00pm
Location: TJ Community Center
Distance: 2 miles & ~3.25 miles
Average pace: 9:42min/mile & ~8:45min/mile
Total Miles For January: 28 miles
Total Miles For 2011: 28 miles

Has it really been 2 years since I’ve done this workout? Yeesh. Anyway, you open and close with a 1-mile warm-up/cool-down, but the main part of it is:

2 min (fast)
2 min (jog/recover)
1 min (faster)
1 min (jog/recover)
30 sec (fastest)
30 sec (jog/recover)

…for four cycles, totaling 28 minutes. Now, I’m guessing on the pace and distance; I lost track of how many times I went around the indoor track but I know that the fast parts were either at 8min/mile or (usually) less, and the jogging was around the 9:30-9:40 pace. So… a guess. Once it’s nice outside I’ll strap on the GPS as well and get a better read on how far/fast I went. (Or get better at counting.)

Hell and Back

Start Time: 9/18/08, 7:15am
Location: Arlington Boulevard Trail
Distance: ~3.25 miles & 2 miles
Average Pace: ~8:37min/mile & 10:00min/mile
Total Miles For September: 20 miles

Another “28 minutes of hell” workout (4 repeats of fast 2, slow 2, faster 1, slow 1, still faster 30 sec, slow 30 sec), which I hadn’t done in a while. I’m not entirely convinced that I really got the fast/faster/faster still paces down pat, but I was definitely moving, and I also clocked more distance in those 28 minutes than with the others, so that’s something. I am a little glad I hadn’t gone overboard and attempted the “48 minutes of hell” workout instead, though. Maybe next week. (3/3/2/2/1/1)

28 minutes of huh

Start Time: 8/21/08, 6:30am
Location: Thomas Jefferson Community Center Outside Track
Distance: 2 miles & ~3 miles
Total Miles For August: 58 miles

Ok, this is a little mortifying. I went to the outside track this morning and after my warm-up mile, ran the “28 minutes of hell” workout… and I lost track of how many laps I ran. I am pretty sure it was 6 laps (3 miles), but… um… you never know, right? It might have only been 5 laps. But I’m counting it as 6 laps. Hee hee hee.

28 more minutes of hell

Start Time: 7/15/08, 6:45am
Location: Thomas Jefferson Community Center Half Mile Loop
Distance: 2 miles & ~2.85 miles
Average Pace: 9:46min/mile & ~9:49min/mile
Total Miles For July: 41 miles

It had been a while since I’d run “28 minutes of hell” so I gave it another stab this morning. It was actually kind of nice out at first (only 70 degrees) but just like yesterday morning’s trip to the gym (rowing and elliptical), I was yawning before I even began. I ran Sunday’s half-mile loop for the course, since it meant I didn’t have to dodge traffic at all. That’s a good thing. Part of me wished I’d pushed it up to the “48 minutes of hell” workout (where it’s 3min, 2min, 1min for the splits) but who am I kidding, I wasn’t up for that just yet. Maybe next week.

All-in-all, not bad. I’d like to push a little harder next time; I should’ve (even with 14 of those 28 minutes being walking) gotten a full 3 miles in. Ah well. As an added bonus, a lot of runners there this morning. It was nice to not be running where the only company is traffic whizzing by and people walking to work (hello, Arlington Boulevard Trail).

warm-up & cool-down: 10:13 & 9:19

Return to the 28 minutes of hell

Start Time: 4/24/08, 7:30am
Location: Arlington Boulevard Trail
Distance: 5 miles
Total Miles For April: 14.5 miles

Oof! This was a return to Fred’s fabled “28 minutes of hell” workout. I didn’t feel like marking off specific distances to run things like halves or quarters, so instead I picked this workout. After a mile warm-up, it’s as follows:

Run 2 minutes, HARD
Recover 2 minutes (slow jog or fast walk)
Run 1 minute, HARD
Recover 1 minute
Run 30 seconds, HARD
Recover 30 seconds
repeat three more times

The nice thing was even with the slower moving for recovery, I polished off 3 miles in those 28 minutes. Considering only half of it was actually running, a 9:20min average speed means I was definitely trucking. Even the cool-down mile was around that speed.

“28 Minutes of Hell”

Start Time: 3/1/08, 8:00am
Location: Washington-Lee High School
Distance: 1 mile & ~2 miles
Total Miles For March: 3

Fred named this one afterwards “28 minutes of hell” and I must admit that I think it’s a pretty accurate description. The idea was as follows:

Run 2 minutes (fast)
Recover 2 minutes
Run 1 minute (faster)
Recover 1 minute
Run 30 seconds (still faster)
Recover 30 seconds

Only you do it four times. Uggghhhh. On the bright side you can do this anywhere because it doesn’t require a track to mark off distance. But it was a pretty kick-butt workout, at the end I felt like I was going to drop.