8K kickdown

Yesterday was an optional day, so I rested :). I was a bit stiff on Saturday afternoon after the 20K but felt totally fine yesterday.

I was ready to go this morning for an 8K kickdown, at least physically. Mentally I was in a bad space because I ate too much chocolate last night :(. Sigh. Still analyzing that one to figure out what went wrong...but I digress. Back to the workout.

It was 35F (about 2C) and calm. Pretty warm for December; it's nice when it's above freezing. We met at Liberty Park, which is basically flat but has some slight ups and downs, all gradual. We got going and did the first 500m nice and slow, in 3:13 by Kelly's watch. I messed up my watch and somehow turned off the GPS so at 2km I powered it down and back on and got the last 6K on my Garmin. Good thing, as you'll see. Our first 2K was very easy, but we were still fast, in 12:17 (we'd planned on 12:40 or so), but we weren't worried because it felt super easy. We tried to just speed up only a little on the next one, and it was a slight uphill for part of it, so that worked out OK. The next 2K was 12:12, and we were still feeling really good.

We sped up a little, but the first 500m of the next 2K was a slight uphill, and we were a bit slow (3:02 by my watch, and I think 2:59 by Kelly's?). During that 500, though, Kelly suddenly screamed. She had rolled her ankle badly on a small pinecone, and was in a good deal of pain. She tried to walk some more but really couldn't and she had to stop and walk back to the car (which was close, since we were doing 2K loops). I continued on by myself (glad that my watch was now working), and picked up the pace a little bit, because I felt good. I was surprised to see the next 500m in 2:49! OK, so it was slightly downhill, but that was fast! I felt good and continued on, doing 2:48 and 2:49 before starting the last 2K. I knew I could go faster, but the first 1K of the last 2K is a slight uphill and I did it in 2:53 and then 2:50, but WOW I was faster on the way back with a 2:39 and 2:43. I know my right knee was straight, too, because I was really focusing on it and on my technique, especially at the end.

Total for the 2Ks: 12:17, 12:12, 11:30, 11:06 for 47:05! It was a good workout! Average HR just 151 for the last 6K, and my max was 168.

Garmin data here.