Thursday, October 27, 2011

10K fartlek - 39 second PR!

We had a cold front come through and it's quite chilly. While it's cold, it's not rainy or windy, so it wasn't too bad this morning. But I admit that getting up in the cold and dark to hit the track for a 10K fartlek is not easy at all. It was 31F (-0.5C) and there was a slight breeze at the track, which is not particular pleasant when it's that cold. However, I was warm enough; I wore tights, 2 long-sleeved shirts, the fleece Nyle gave me (just for 800m of the warm-up, at which point I was too warm in it), gloves, and a headband/ear warmer. Towards the end of the workout I even pushed the sleeves up on the shirts.

I felt good on the warm-up. I did the 1600m in 9:42, with some strides on the last lap. I stretched out a bit and got going.

Today's workout was strong and very consistent, and I'm proud of it. I focused a lot on keeping my technique smooth, bringing my knees and hips through low, and using my glutes. I worked hard on the last 4km to keep my pace up on the fast 500s, because I really wanted them all to be under 2:50. They were :), with almost all of them 2:48-2:49. And most of my medium effort 500s were about 3:02; the fastest was 2:57 and slowest was 3:05. It was a good workout, despite the cold and dark (it remained quite dark until the last 2km or so). I worked hard, but not excessively so. It's great to have my heart rate monitor back again! My ave HR was just 157, and my max 165, so I had a bit of room to spare. Mind you, I was not taking it easy at all though! I was just doing a good, hard, workout at a pace that was hard without bludgeoning myself.

Splits: 5K 28:47, 8K 46:24, 10K 58:09 (5:49/km; 9:22/mile).

Fun side note: there was a runner on the track too, and I lapped her about 5 times :). Yeah, she was slow, but still...I love passing runners!

Garmin connect data here.

1 comment:

Harriet said...

Nice workout Tammy. :-)