First Speedwork and...a Cheat Sheet?

This morning I made my first attempt (ever) at doing some speedwork.  Since I'm using JG's HM for Time Goal training plan, today called for 4x800 speedwork, using acceleration gliders as a warm-up.  Confused?  Maybe not if you've done them before, but if you are a newbie to this speedwork thing like I am, that is definitely confusing.  So I poured over the speedwork sections of JG's books and tried to remember exactly what to do, how to do it, and in what sequence.  No matter how many times I re-read it, the information just wasn't sinking in...

I needed some way of having this information at my fingertips for reference while I ran, but no way was I going to carry the whole book around the track with me...  So I figured I'd just copy a sheet - but ew, that paper would get gross fast...  Solution?  Lamination!  A friend helped me laminate an index-card-size instruction sheet for both the 800m repetitions and the acceleration gliders (one set on each side).  Genius!  A cheat sheet small enough to carry and that's water/sweat-proof!

All in all, this first attempt went well, but I'm looking forward to working with the group to perfect the technique.  I started out with a 2 lap warm-up walk, then did 4 laps for 4 sets of acceleration gliders, with one set per lap, using the remainder of each lap as a walk break between the gliders.  Then I walked another lap before starting the 800m repeats.  I did 4x800m, with a 1 lap walk-break between each one.  And I'm pretty pleased with the results!

Today's stats:

• 2 lap warm-up walk & 4 acceleration gliders @ 1 lap each
• warm-up walk: 0.5 mi; 0:07:51; 15:42 avg pace
• 4 gliders + walk breaks: 1.0 mi; 0:14:07 min
• 1 lap walk
• 0.24 mi; 0:04:18 min; 17:49 avg pace
• 4x800m
• 1st 800m:  0.50 mi; 0:05:27 min; 10:48 avg pace
• 2nd 800m: 0.50 mi; 0:05:31 min; 11:00 avg pace
• 3rd 800m: 0.51 mi; 0:05:33 min; 10:56 avg pace
• 4th 800m: 0.52 mi; 0:05:40 min; 10:49 avg pace
• Total w/ walk breaks: 2.80mi; 0:35:11 min; 12:35 avg pace