6K+ fartlek on indoor track

This morning winter arrived. There was snow at 5000 ft at the University of Utah, and at the track it was 37F (3C) and steady rain. Ugh! I decided that another gym membership was in order at the U field house, where they have a 211m indoor track. Last winter my foot was too messed-up to need it, but two winters ago I enjoyed my membership there, so I got another one. 6 months for $80 for university staff members. Not too shabby. They have tennis & racquetball & basketball courts, cardio equipment, weights, and even a pool, though it's only open in the mornings on Wednesdays. But the best thing by far is the indoor track. I just wish it was 200m or something more convenient. Oh well; I can use Excel to easily figure my times to compare with the outdoor track.

Today I was to do a 6K fartlek. I was feeling pretty well recovered from the 25K on Saturday. I tried not to think too much about my technique or my foot, hoping that would make me faster. It didn't. I was slow again.

It was the usual 1K hard then 500m med/500m hard to the end. In this case, I did 1055m hard then 527.5m med/527.5 m hard to the finish.

Here are my times, and the translation to the 400m track:

lap 211m adjusted
1 06:00.0 05:41.2
2 03:20.0 03:09.6
3 03:01.0 02:51.6
4 03:25.0 03:14.3
5 03:02.0 02:52.5
6 03:29.0 03:18.1
7 03:02.0 02:52.5
8 03:31.0 03:20.0
9 03:04.0 02:54.4
10 03:37.0 03:25.7
11 03:02.0 02:52.5
total 38:33.0 36:32.4

Not very good. My recoveries were very slow; the last recovery I didn't try as hard because I just didn't have the oomph to do it. But I did try hard on the others and they still were lousy. As I said in my last post, I'm really in a mood lately. This last week has been a downer for many reasons - slow RW times, my dad in the hospital with knee replacement (both knees) and not doing so hot as of last night, kids bouncing off the walls and stressing me out more, and then I have made it worse by stress eating and gaining weight.

Finally, I'm a bit down because I've decided (OK, coach decided) not to do the 50K. I'm sure he's right, but I feel like such a wuss for not doing it. The thing is with the technique changes it's probably better not to up the mileage so much right now, and my most important races next year are 20K, so it makes sense not to do it. Still, I want to, and I feel like a chump for not doing it. I'm sure it's for the better but I don't FEEL that way yet.

Sorry for the downer post.

Garmin connect data here.