14K kickdown

This was supposed to be a 15K kickdown, but I overslept my alarm a little bit (was up late helping Calvin on his class project) and I had to cut out 1K - as it was, I barely got the kids to school on time. Whew.

I was to do 3 splits of 5K/5K/5K, but I did 4K/5K/5K instead. The weather was OK; 31F (-1C) and light snow, with a dusting of snow on the road. Mostly it wasn't terribly slippery, but at all the intersections it was a bit iffy, and in a few other places as well. I don't think I lost much time due to the conditions, but I'm not really 100% sure.

I started off slowly and sluggishly. I was not mentally into it - still sleepy and a bit groggy I think. The first 4K I had a watch issue - pressed stop for a second and somehow didn't restart and lost a little more than 0.5km - that 3:40 in there isn't right because I wasn't moving for part of it while I was figuring out what was wrong, and thought the watch was stopped though it wasn't. Oops. The average of my other 500s was 3:08 (6:16/km), which would have been a 31:20 5K. My heart rate was low this morning - Jim says that sometimes when you work out in the morning you have a slow metabolism and no matter what you do the HR won't budge. That's kind of how it was - I gave it 90%+ effort at the end and my HR was about 160, which is low for this workout. No matter.

The second 5K I felt quite good - surprisingly. I told myself I had to get my mind into the workout, and it worked! I just ticked off the km and felt good, finishing that 5K in 30:09 for 6:02/km. I paused for a second before starting the third 5K and told myself "It's a 5K race - go for it!". My legs were moving but the heart rate wasn't; I felt I should have been faster and it was frustrating. However, I did manage to finish in 29:20 for the last 5K, which is pretty good for a kickdown workout. Jim says usually the last split of a kickdown is a bit slower than race pace for the distance. My 15K race in May was 1:29 (29:40/5K) and so this was faster than that by a good bit, reflecting my improved fitness. Still...I think if I'd felt 100% this morning I might have had a sub-29 in me. Well, I get to try again next week for a 20K kickdown!

Average HR for the workout was only 144, with a max of 163.

Garmin connect data here.