Thursday, April 05, 2012

5K fartlek - new PR for this workout!

I really did not want to get out of bed today. I was warm and snug, and I'd been up late at work doing a 36-hr time point (I was there from 9:40-10:40 pm), and so I didn't get to sleep until after 11. Add to that tired and sore body and legs from weight training and from racewalking, and it was hard to get up! The weather was decent at least - 36F (2C) and no wind, which I was very happy about. Yeah, a little chilly, but not bad at all. Warm compared with January weather anyway, and tomorrow it's supposed to snow, so I am not complaining at all about today's weather.

I warmed up for 1600m in 9:45ish with strides on the last lap. I did some dynamic stretches and was ready to go. 5K fartlek is a short workout, but you do have to go hard, and I wasn't necessarily excited about that with my sore legs. However, I'd felt good on the warmup so I figured I would see what I could do.

I started off really fast - the first 500 was in 2:37.8 and the second in just 2:41.8 for 5:19.6 for the first km. I was happy with that but a little worried as I still had 4 km to go and didn't want a repeat of Tuesday's 5x800/200 workout. Fortunately, my body held up better today. I was really surprised that all my fast intervals were 2:43 or less! Here are the rest of my splits: 2:53.8, 2:43.6, 2:55.1, 2:42.6, 2:56.4, 2:43.8, 2:56.6, and 2:42.1. I really worked this one very hard - my HR monitor went a bit crazy the last few km, but for the 2nd and 3rd km it was in the upper 160s for the fast segments, so I know I was going hard, and I'm sure that it only got higher as I went on. Note to self: wash out HR monitor strap every day to prevent salt accumulation and weird readings! This did not happen with my last HR monitor, but the monitor part on that was all plastic. This strap is softer and cloth, hence more comfortable to wear, but also more erratic.

Total time: 27:53.6! Yay! New PR by 5 seconds or so. I'll take it!

Legs are sore and so is the rest of me, but I have cross-training tomorrow plus some weight training and hopefully I'll feel a bit recovered for 20K on Saturday.

Garmin data here.

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