Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Intervals

Last night I tackled an interval run -- in hot, humid weather. I figured it was going to be awful -- .25-mile repeats with .10-mile recoveries, 10 times, with 1.25-mile warm-up and 1.25-mile cool-down. That's 6 miles.

Immediately I allowed myself to walk the .10-mile recoveries. No reason to wear myself out running those. I went out 3 miles, which was about half of the repeats, and I told myself I could just jog back. I was out of Nuun after 3 miles, which indicates how hot it was. I made it half-way and figured, well, I can do it again. I kept talking myself into one more repeat until I finished. The cool-down was pretty pathetic, especially when the sky opened up and I got caught in a downpour. I walked for a half-mile or so during the cool-down, which was fine.

This was a really tough workout, and I'm proud of myself for getting through it. During the 6 miles, I walked about 1.5 miles for recovery, and I finished the entire workout in 1:02 or so.

It felt really hard, and I figured it was the heat. Turns out, I was also running the .25-mile repeats faster than last time:


For reference, my 5k pace is 8:36, and I was trying to stay under that. Not much trouble last night compared to last week. Of course, last week, I went back and forth between walking and jogging the recoveries, but still: Progress!

Tonight is my one-mile timed trial. This should be interesting.

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