Higher math fails me

With temperatures in the single digits and winds deep into double digits, I did the speed workout on the track inside at Half Acre. It's an elevated wooden thing above the basketball courts, combining two of my favorite things: running and pickup basketball. Granted, I didn't play but I love to watch the dynamics on a court.

The workout was called Yasso 800s. They're named for an editor at Runner's World named Bart Yasso, who figured a runner could get a little bit of a speed workout while training for a marathon in a simple way. Take your goal time and extrapolate it for a half-mile or 800 meters (the difference is 4.75 meters. Sue me). For example, my goal time is 3 hours, 15 minutes so I'd do my Yasso 800s in 3 minutes, 15 seconds.

Today I warmed up for 10 minutes, took an energy gel and some water, then did each with about four minutes of walking and light jogging between. Then I cooled down for 10 minutes and stretched on the mats at the scenery fest downstairs. The times were 3:07, 3:27 and 3:16, though it didn't feel like I was running that fast. Here's where the higher math fails me, and where someone better at this than I can step in.

The sign on the wall said

Lane 1: 11.5 laps to the mile.
Lane 2: 11 laps to the mile.
Lane 3: 10.5 laps to the mile.
Lane 4: 10 laps to the mile.

Naturally, the lanes weren't labeled. But I figured since the distance around the track is shorter on the inside lane, it would take more laps to equal a mile in that lane, less in the outside. The faster the runner, the farther outside they're supposed to run, so I stayed in the outside lane and ran five laps for each alleged half-mile. Again, I'm skeptical that I did them right because those times are way too fast for my current level of fitness.

Note the bolded part. Was that assumption wrong?

I ditched the iPod for the meat of the workout because I didn't think I could run fast with the thing in. I was right. So no playlist.