6K fartlek

The weather was good this morning. It was 41F (5C) and slightly breezy. I'm laughing a bit as I type that, because my friend Nyle in New Zealand was very cold at 8C (though I think it was windier). It's all in what you are used to! She can race with the best of them in the heat, though, which will help her in Sacramento. I digress.

I was in a bit of a mental funk this morning. No energy, and not wanting to do anything. But I just bought a $300 plane ticket to Riverside, CA to go do the 15K in May, so I knew I had to go do the hard workout!

I got to the track and did my 1600m warm-up in 10:07, and lots of dynamic flexibility drills. Physically I was feeling good - hamstrings are not so sore and feeling much better. I figured it could be a decent workout.

The running club was at the track so now and then I had to shift to lane 2 to let them pass. My boss was there (he's in that club) and he said hi as I warmed up. It was nice to see a familiar face, even if it's slightly annoying to have to keep moving aside for the runners (they are very kind and appreciative about it though).

I got started and my times were OK today. I did NOT push as hard as I did on Saturday - in retrospect, I thought maybe I pushed a bit too hard. HR in the mid-170s is on the edge, and in the upper 170s-low 180s is definitely for the hardest efforts only (i.e. races). I don't recover as well from harder efforts and it's not necessary to push it THAT hard to get a good training effect. 170 is plenty hard...plenty. (Actually, in Dave McGovern's RW clinic, he estimated my max HR at 191, so 170 is about 90% - pretty high). Today's effort was hard but not as hard as I sometimes do this workout. My ave HR was 161, with my average for the recoveries in the upper 150s and my average in the fast segments in the mid 160s. Plenty of effort to get results. I felt really mentally tired today, and that was all I could push; in addition, my legs felt like Jell-O for the last 3K. (I did get through the first 3K under 18:00 though, in 17:56). My recoveries are still slow; as my cardiovascular fitness improves, those will get better. And today, my fast segments were a little slower too - probably because I was a tad conservative, wanting to make sure I got through the whole workout. My last 500m was really hard, though! I wanted to make it as fast as the first, and I succeeded. Overall, very consistent workout, and about where I figured I'd be. Total time: 36:28.

Here are my splits:
1K fast: 5:45
500m med: 3:08
500m fast: 2:52
500m med: 3:15
500m fast: 2:54
500m med: 3:14
500m fast: 2:55
500m med: 3:17
500m fast: 2:54
500m med: 3:16
500m fast: 2:52

Garmin connect data here.