10K kickdown - 4 second PR!

Yesterday I didn't get quite as much workout time as I'd like; I managed only 15 min on the elliptical, but then I did 20 min of the glute/hip exercises Jim gave me. They are really good. I worked hard but hopefully won't be as sore as last time.

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I woke up a little later than planned and had to scramble a bit to figure out how to get my workout done and get the kids to summer camp. It worked out OK, though I ended up being a little late to work. It didn't help that I got a phone call from the vet this morning. Our dog Sahara had surgery last week to remove a mass from near the base of her tail. The vet said it was likely either a hemangioma (benign) or a hemangiosarcoma (malignant). Unfortunately, the pathology came back today showing the latter. In addition, the margins were not 100% clear so she needs to have a little more surgery to remove the rest (which they will do tomorrow). It's a locally aggressive cancer, but apparently it's not that likely to metastasize, which is good news. At least the vet called AFTER my workout. But I digress.

Back to the workout. It was a warm June morning, and it was 64F when I finished my workout. I think it was about 60F (15C) when I started. But the humidity was low and there was a bit of a breeze, so it felt just fine.

I didn't discuss it with my coach beforehand, but I thought I'd try to do my four 2.5 km splits at 3:05/500m, 3:00/500m, 2:55/500m, and race hard for the last one and see what came out. That's pretty close to what I did, and it worked out well. My last split was not as fast as the fastest 2.5K I've done in this workout, but it was solid, and combined with faster early splits it was a new PR by 4 seconds. Here are my 2.5km splits: 15:16.5, 14:58.0, 14:37.1, 14:16.1 for a total of 59:07.5. Not bad! I felt really worked on that last 2.5k, but still managed to pull off a 2:46 for my last 500! I sprinted the last 100m in 31 seconds to do it :).

This workout hurts a lot. I always forget how painful that last 2.5km can be. Good thing or I'd be more reluctant to do it. I was able to focus on my technique despite the hard effort, though, and I'm pleased with how that went. I think it's improving. Oh, and my glutes were not too terribly sore from yesterday's strength training, though tomorrow's 12K might be a little slow. Still, this was a good workout and I'm happy about that.

Side note: I got a little boost from the East High cheerleaders who arrived near the end of my workout. Their coach had them do a few laps (running) and while some of them passed me I was able to stay ahead of most of them :). Gotta love that!

Garmin data here.