ARRRGH! I accidentally deleted the workout off of my Garmin.
Fortunately, it was short enough that I remember the splits (and I reviewed them afterward, so I do know them). Unfortunately, I didn't look at my average HR. I do know it was about low-mid 160s on the medium-effort 500s.
Because Kelly was with me, 1) I went fast, and 2) she looked at my knee and pronounced it good :). Whew.
Kelly was super fast today, too. She was about 3 sec slower on the first recovery but then we were the same speed.
Weather: brrrrrrrr! It was 9F (-13C) by Kelly's thermometer and 12F (-11C) by my car thermometer. There was a slight breeze in our faces heading out and that felt SO very cold! But with a long-sleeved shirt and my new jacket on top, and tights and fleece on the bottom, I stayed warm enough (oh, and hat and gloves too).
My legs felt good this morning - even better than yesterday, which surprised me since I did 8K yesterday. But I think I'm starting to recover from the sore muscles, FINALLY. I am really relieved, because I was getting a bit concerned.
We did an easy warm-up of 1.65km (just over a mile) in about 10:30. That was slow because the sidewalks getting to the Jordan River Trail (the track is under 6 inches of snow...so it's still out of the question) were a bit icy, and there's a bit of a hill too. Plus, we were taking it VERY easy to warm our muscles gently. Though my legs felt OK I wanted to be cautious.
Just before we started the fartlek, we did a few leg swings for dynamic flexibility, while holding on to each other's shoulders. There were trees nearby but off the path it was really snowy and we wanted to keep our feet warm!
We started off nice and fast, in 2:36 for 500m, and then settled in for 2:42 for the second 500m. In retrospect, we should have pushed that one a bit harder perhaps? In any case, the 500m recovery was 2:51 for me and 2:54 for Kelly, who was a bit fatigued after the 1km hard (though on all the rest she stayed with me; I waited the 3 sec for her with watch stopped). Turning around and retracing our steps back, we did an amazing 2:29 (first time I've been under 2:30 for a 500m!) for our next fast split. We followed that up with a very fast 2:44 medium-effort 500m, and finally, gave it all we had (really --- I left nothing in the tank) for a blazing fast 2:27. WOW! I wish I could see my HR data...but I'm pretty sure it was in the low-mid 170s by the finish. Maybe even high 170s? Anyway, the total time was 15:50!!!!! I was SO happy to be under 16:00 for the first time ever, and I broke my 3K PR of 16:18 by almost 30 seconds!!!!!!!!
I feel very encouraged. I felt I was using my glutes well and walking efficiently. Oh, and I forgot to mention something that I think helped - I realized the other day on the elliptical that I was exhaling when my right foot came down (my dominant leg). I decided that if I exhaled when my LEFT foot came down and pushed that I might use my left leg more effectively. So today, when I was walking the fartlek, I consciously thought about my breathing and actually had to switch it up several times because I naturally switched to breathing out with my right foot! I think it helped a lot to exhale with my left foot to get more push off the left leg, psychologically at least if not physically. I felt strong. And Kelly says I was legal :). (I was thinking about that right knee, believe me!).
So glad I'm feeling better. I'm ready for some good training. Let's hope that it goes better leading up to the 20K in March than it did before the 40K (illness) and 30K (injury). You can't control these things, but it sure would be nice to have a good race, after several not-so-great efforts.
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