8K fartlek

Today I was to do an 8K fartlek, but of a different kind than in the past. Previously I've done 1K hard, then alternating 500m medium/500m hard until the end. But today my coach had me do a ladder of sorts: 500m hard, 500m medium, 1K hard, 1K medium, 2K hard, 1K medium, 1K hard, 500m medium, 500m hard.

My legs were slightly sore when I got up (hamstrings, the usual...) but otherwise I felt pretty good. The weather was cooperating better today. It was a bit chilly, but really perfect weather for a hard workout. At 49.3F (9.6C), overcast, and very still, I decided to wear shorts and a T-shirt. 50F is usually my cutoff for wearing long sleeves and tights, but with no wind and with the hard effort I was going to put forth, I opted for the shorter outfit. I did wear gloves for the warm-up, but then stashed them when I started the hard part.

I was bored with fartleks in Liberty Park, so I did this on 800 East instead. It does have some slight inclines, but is basically flat, and the traffic is low. I did have to pause a couple times to cross 1300S/1700S, but not for long (a few seconds). This is a pretty good place to train. I picked a 2K length of the road and went out and back twice for the workout.

I warmed up for 1 mile (downhill) in 10:20, pretty easy. I did flexibility drills and then I was off. The first 500m was on a very slight downhill and I missed the split on my watch by 20m (oops), but it was a fast 2:50 for that 520m. Good, I thought, maybe I'll be fast today. Nope. But I wasn't terribly slow either, for most of the intervals. The first 1K was in 5:52; I guess that's a bit slow but it was slightly uphill. I felt pretty good for all the intervals except the 2K, which just seemed long today. It had a slight uphill for the first 1/2 and then a slight downhill. I can see by looking at my HR on the player of the Garmin connect website that I eased up a bit in the middle; I will admit to being a bit conservative for part of it because I think I was a bit afraid of the length of the interval for some reason. Anyway, the 2K was slow because of that; 11:58. Grrrr. Then I resolved to really focus hard and push hard for the rest. My recoveries were very slow after the 2K; I guess I got tired, because I kept my HR in the 150 range for them. The last 1K was flat, and I did it in 5:53, and then pushed on the uphill last 500m for 2:55.

Not bad. Not great either. But I worked hard and did what I could. Now I get to have a few easy days. 10K tomorrow, 20K Sunday, optional on Monday. Good thing, because I am definitely a bit stiff after this workout. Probably didn't help that I do weight training with my friend Lisa on MWF, and so when I have a week like this where my hard workouts are W & F, it does throw things off. I did weight training after my workout on Wednesday and also today. I tried to avoid too much hard leg stuff, but I did do some one-legged ball squats today, along with some sideways walking w/resistance to work my gluteus medius and avoid recurrence of that evil IT band problem I had last year. I did a bunch of other stuff which I'm too lazy to list (mostly arms/chest/back) and also did a whole lot of core work with Lisa.

Workout link on Garmin Connect for interested parties here.