3K fartlek

Sunday: 20 min elliptical, because I was in the mood, even though it was an optional rest day. The hotel ellipticals are good, but they are a different brand than my gym, so my calves got verrrrrrrry sore from using it. Plus lots of walking around the city and the SfN conference.

Monday: cross-training; 25 min elliptical and 20 min on stationary bike. Lots of walking around the city and conference again too.

Today: Calves hurt oh so oh so oh so much! It's actually pretty amusing. But I was determined to do my fartlek anyway. I went down to the Riverwalk for a warm-up, and then over to the Lakeshore Trail heading south for the workout. My warm-up was not tracked at all correctly on the Garmin; apparently the tall buildings and/or the sunken path by the river mess it up. It was amusing to see the track it put on the map. My calves felt really stiff and my gait awkward during the warm-up, but some strides seemed to even things out a bit. Still, I feel disoriented and a bit weird doing a workout in the middle of the day in a strange city. I'm enjoying the conference but ready to go home, and glad I don't have a job that requires regular travel like this all the time - once in a while is fun, but it'd get old for me fast.

Then after dynamic stretching and bridges and clamshells for glute activation, I got started. It was 70F (21C) and quite windy, at 14kph steady (~9mph) with bigger gusts. It is kind of humid too, especially compared to Utah, so I was pretty warm. I didn't have any high expectations, as my legs were sore and I felt out-of-sorts and it was warm outside. However, I did really well! Go figure. It might be the altitude; I find I do speed work much better at sea level.

My time was 17:14, and my splits were: 2:42.0, 2:53.8, 3:01.7, 2:44.4, 3:03.9, 2:49.1 (tired on that last one!). Ave HR for the whole workout was 163, and I pushed it very hard especially at the end (mid 170s). This is the best fartlek I've done in a while, and it's good timing as I'm going to race this weekend. And that was with sore calves and wind in my face pretty hard the second 500m.

Garmin data here.