Brutal

Headed out the door at 5.15 this morning to meet up with Steve for our 5.45 call to the track. Temps were in the low 70s, dew point high 60s, it was going to be rough! Met up with a depleted mining crew as they were heading out on their run. I wished Jay, Mike B and Bill a nice run and carried on to the track to do some drills/strides before the workout. Steve joined me right on time as usual and we set off.

The workout was 1600 in 5:25, 2 1ks in 3:07, 600m in 1:48 finishing with another k in 3:00, 400m recovery jog between each interval. This is how it panned out….

Tried to find an 81 second groove immediately on the first interval. What I thought was going to be the comfortable part of the workout turned out to be tougher than expected though. Both Steve and I were breathing pretty heavy by the third lap even at the pace we were running- this was clearly going to be a long and painful one! Hit the mile in 5:23, on target, but effort wise already behind the eight ball! The first k was a relatively smooth 3:09, the second k a very unsmooth 3:09. As I jogged the 400m leading into the 600m I at least consoled myself with the thought that this one was going to be over quicker- only one lap to go after the first 200! I didn’t look at my watch during this interval, I just tried to run as efficiently as possible. 1:49. Happy with that but not looking forward to the final k! Have to confess I went to the well for the final repeat. Arms and legs were pretty much flailing everywhere as I tried to summon every part of oxygen I could into my lungs and I closed with a 3:11- way off schedule but certainly 3k effort if not pace!

Looking back I’m pretty satisfied with this workout. In spite of the conditions I hit most of the times apart from the last one. Having said that I spent a lot more energy than I would have liked and this might come back to haunt me on Friday night! Still, no run now until tomorrow evening, then Thursday off so the plan before Friday is to get as much sleep as possible and drink water until it is coming out my ears. I typically have been drinking at least 2 liters a day plus all my other fluid intakes, that is being ramped up to 3 starting from today!