Wednesday Night Speed: 5 miles at half marathon race pace
October 10th
It’s race week!!!! (Okay I know this was a few weeks ago now but no surprise here: not a timely blogger). Back to the post: I’m not sure if those exclamation points are because I am excited or nervous or scared!!! Maybe a little of each :).
Like last week’s workout Megha and I showed up knowing we had our own workout since we were with the marathon group. We did the normal warm-up with the crew and then it was time to tempo.
The plan? 5 miles at 6:44 pace aka goal race pace. Goal race pace? In the words of my coach “6:40-6:44s on the flats if you can find them.” Man I hope I can find them.
Not going to lie the legs were a bit tired from all the recent mileage, last week’s speed and my PR long run but I knew I was more or less training through this race. I backed off a bit by dropping my weekly mileage and running an easier Wednesday workout and hoped my legs would show up on Sunday.
As for the workout we decided to run the first mile on the track to find pace and then hit the GL.
Our first mile was a little fast. My Garmin had 6:36 but it was a bit slower than that because my Garmin isn’t super accurate on the track. The next mile was 6:41 and it was the downhill mile to the track and my Garmin has trouble with downhill.
Oh Garmin. It’s not your fault; laps and elevation are tricky.
My next mile was 6:35 and while it didn’t feel bad I didn’t want to push things. I glanced at my watch after starting mile 4 and it still said I was running in the 6:30s so I (made a good life choice) and backed off finishing with a 6:40 and 6:40 for a 6:39 average in the dark. Yep time for dark workouts around the GL.
Megha wasn’t racing and was feeling good so she pulled ahead for the last two miles. As I saw her pull away I felt like my workout was getting harder and harder. It was a good reminder that workouts are easier with others and I better find someone to race with on Sunday.
Easy cool down back to the track and time to rest, rest, rest in order to chase my pot of gold Tiffany & Co. necklace.
run pretty run fast
