A.M. Met Jeff on the trail. Ran 10.2 in 1:19:22. Did some pickups (100s, 200s, 400s) totaling a mile at around 5:05 pace. P.M. Worked on breaking the 6:00 barrier with Benjamin. The plan was go 6:00 pace to failure, then kick, when the kick becomes slower than 6:24 pace stop. Benjamin made it to 1000 in 3:43 (2 seconds ahead of schedule), but then he panicked and said he could not go anymore without failing to break 6:24 pace over 100 meters first. That was revealing and helped me understand why he is struggling with a sub-6:00 mile. Fast pace produces a certain measure of emotional stress and he does not yet know how to handle this type of emotion. He is only 10 and his emotions have not yet matured, but I would imagine many adults have a hard time running fast for the exact same reason. So the hypothesis is that interval training can be used to treat a certain type of deep emotional problems. Fast pace will very predictably cause some type of emotional blow-up if there is an underlying weakness. The individual can be prepared and know exactly where that blow-up would happen and can be prepared to make an effort to control it. Thus he will develop a skill that he can use when that blow-up rears up its ugly head in other situations. Since it was obvious that Benjamin's failure was of emotional nature, I told him he had to finish the mile in segments. So after jogging 600 I told him to try to run 2:17 for the remaining 600. He made it to 300 in 1:06, continued for another 50 meters, and then bailed out. I had him jog back 50 meters, and told him to bust out the gate and blast the first 100 as fast as he could and then hang on to dear life for the remaining 200. I was thinking he would end up with something like 1:03, be he surprised me and ran 59 (5:15 pace) with the splits of 18-20-21. That gave us 5:48 total for the mile in three segments of 1000 - 300 - 300. This is the furtherest Benjamin has run at sub-6:00 continuously, and also the fastest segmented mile he has run in a workout. The good news is that he consciously understands the problem, and with each try is more and more prepared to deal with the beast. Our total distance was 2 miles. 2 with Julia and Jenny. We stayed together until about 0.3 to go. Then Jenny took off. I stayed with Julia for about 200 meters, and then went after Jenny so I would get her time. Barely caught her before the finish, our time was 16:58. Julia finished in 17:27. 0.5 with Joseph in 4:39. 0.25 with Jacob in 2:49.
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