Notes
Hard Mile (faster than 4:45) w/5' rest+5x(tempo mile w/60"+400 w/2:30). Drove out to West Branch with the team and Randy let me loose to do my own workout. Gotta love the flexibility compared to the last two schools I was at. I had to carry my flats with me on the 5k jog over to the high school track, the dirt/gravel roads around here are just too unpredictable and hilly to do any good pace work on. I was already wringing wet with sweat on this super humid morning, but at least the sun was hidden behind some cloud cover. The high school track was so shotty that I didn't know where the marks were on the track so just picked the clearest white line and would only have 400m splits. The hard mile went well, opened in 69, settled to 70s and closed in 66 for 4:36.2. I had no problem recovering before the mile/400 sets. I was a bit slow on the first tempo opening in 80, but rallied to a solid pace and ran 5:07.5. The following 400 was like an extended stride and with no 200 mark to judge I was just trying to manage the effort. 65.4. A little hiccup after the 400, where I went off a minute instead of the 2:30, but that was the only time I messed that up. 5:05.9 followed by 65.8. I was into a rhythm at this point and the workout was flowing well so I didn't overthink things and kept plugging away. 5:03.9/66.6, 5:02.5/65.6. I was at the last set and other than flinging lots of sweat with every pump of the arm, my legs were feeling good and I was running at maybe and 80% effort. I'd gradually been chipping away at the miles and I wanted to break 5 for the last tempo piece while still maintaining the appropriate effort. 4:58.8. I briefly entertained the notion of blasting the last 400 but I also didn't want to risk anything necessary so I worked on running as hard but smooth as possible; 64.9. Super solid morning. gives me a lot of fo confidence to run these types of paces without pressing!