8K fartlek - PR!!! (and race PR at 5K!!!)

Yesterday I cross-trained by biking everywhere I went: to work, to a bookstore, to get the kids, to do another errand, then home. I didn't drive my car anywhere yesterday! I biked a total of 16.3km, which is not that far, but keep in mind that biking to work is a really hilly workout. It fit with my day, and it felt good.

***

Today was an amazing workout. The weather was perfect, at 46F (8C) when I arrived at the track, and clear and sunny with a slight breeze. Lovely! The long days of late spring are here, and it's been so nice to have the sun up for my early morning workouts.

I started off with a very fast and fluid warm-up, 1600m in 9:14 (that used to be my interval pace for those!) with a few 100m strides thrown in. I was feeling great, and I thought it would be a good day. Usually the warm-up doesn't mean too much, as you can have a lousy warm-up and a good day, and you can have a good warm-up and a lousy day. But today felt especially good, for what it's worth (not much, in terms of scientific evidence!).

I told myself not to go out too hard, because I had 8km to do. I started off pretty easy but still got to 500m in just 2:35, and then 2:40 for the next 500m. Nice. Things continued this way and I arrived at 3km in just 16:26 - only 2 seconds slower than my 3K PR!!! WOW! About 4km, I realized I might PR at 5 km - not just a fartlek PR but a RACE PR! Sure enough, I got to 5K in just 27:41, 7 seconds faster than the race PR I set last June at the Art Attack 5K in SugarHouse Park. Amazing. And what's more, I was not too tired to do 3 more fast 500s and finish the 8K fartlek in only 44:41 - a fartlek PR by 34 seconds, and my fastest 8K ever, I believe.

My fast 500m (after the first very fast 2:35) were all from 2:40-2:42, and my medium 500m were all 2:53-2:58. My average HR for the whole workout was just 159 (lowish!) and on the last interval I was working it, with ave HR 166 and max of 169.

I'm totally thrilled with how things are going. 44:41 for 8K is 5:35/km and 8:59/mile. Yup, I averaged under a 9-min mile for 5 miles! Never thought I'd do that.

Garmin data here.