Tuesday Speed Work

I had to get an early start to get this morning's workout in. I mentioned to Matt and Lanier that I would have to start at the obscene time of 4:15 AM so that I could be at HSV by 6:00 for a 7:00 flight. I secretly hoped that they would balk at the idea and stick to their 5:00 AM routine and I could skip this workout. But NO. They had to be real friends who make sacrifices to accommodate my wacky schedule today.

I'm glad they did! Realistically, I would have skipped this workout if they hadn't been there. Thanks guys. I certainly enjoyed the company and needed the push.

The schedule called for 4 x 1 mile repeats at 5k pace. I haven't run a 5k in a long time, so I guessed that my 5k pace would be about 6:20 based on Saturday's 10k performance. 6:20 was the plan. We took 3 minutes between miles. I need to work on shortening the rest interval.

1. 6:20
2. 6:10
3. 6:18
4. 6:16

I was well pleased with that, but it was uncomfortable. My shoes felt like cinder blocks on that last mile, particularly the last 0.25 mile, which was into the wind. My feet were so heavy. If you're supposed to leave the track feeling like you could do one more interval, then I did too much today. I may have been able to pull out another half mile, but no more.

With warm-up and cool down, I put in about 7.5 total miles today, with 4 very hard ones. On the cool down run home, when I turned to go home, Lanier mentioned that he was going to run some more around downtown. WOW. I'm glad I didn't have time to join him. Otherwise, I would have had to join him or make up an excuse not to!