6K kickdown

I still have the cold, but I'm feeling about 90% of normal now, so I figured a hard workout would be fine (and besides, I did a hard workout in spinning yesterday and then worked all day, and that went all right). The weather was chilly at 32F (0C), but it was calm and there was no precipitation, thankfully.

Today I was to do a 6K kickdown. Normally my kickdowns have been 4 splits, but since this one was so short, it was to be 3 splits of 2K each. Jim didn't say how fast to go - just however I felt, and to start a little faster than usual since it was just a 3 split kickdown.

I took his advice to heart! I know I always start these too fast, and I tried not to, but it's been a long time since I've done one, so of course I started too fast. I did have the help of the slight downhill on the north side of Liberty Park, but then I kept going too fast :). Oh well! I'm still happy with the workout. Why? 1) I did go faster on each split. 2) I had a very fast 6K overall, and I felt strong until the last 1.5 km; even then, I still managed to pull out a strong finish on the last 500m despite being very tired. 3) I now have a much better idea of pace than I did before. This takes a while to work out, especially after a layoff like I've had.

I really died on the last 1.5 km (though like I said I did manage a good last 500m). It hurt a lot, but in a good way. I feel I got a great workout, and that's the point.

Here are my splits: 2K (4x500m)

12:30 (3:06, 3:07, 3:04, 3:13)
12:00 (3:02, 3:00, 2:58, 3:00)
11:42 (2:52, 2:56, 3:03, 2:51)

Total time was 36:17 (my watch rounds down for some reason, hence the extra 5 seconds). I'm proud of this effort. It is 3 minutes faster than the hilly 6K I did in November when I was sick (OK, so this route was flat, and I'm feeling decent now though not 100% over my cold). I got to 5K in about 30:20, which is quick considering I started off at a 6:15/km pace. I felt really strong until the very end, and the endurance will return. I got a nice sense of confidence that I still have some good speed in there.

Garmin connect data here.