Notes
We did a tempo workout today so as to get in some quality work while not going too hard yet following the tough weekend. The trade-off, however, was that it was a pretty long workout. We did a 6.75 mile (6 laps of Moorland) progression run/tempo in which my group was set to do the first mile at 6:10, progress down to 5:35 over the first three laps, and then run the second half of the workout maintaining 5:35s. We ended up running a little fast for the whole thing, coming through in 6:06, 5:57, 5:41, 5:30, 5:30, and closing in 5:28 (these were mile splits for the first mile of the loop- we would obviously maintain pace while running on Moorland Rd and then start the next split from the corner with the mailbox where we begin workouts. So the total time for the workout, including the pieces not included in splits, was 39:35). The 6:00 pace felt delightfully relaxed, but as we progressed I started to feel a little tired. Once we settled into the tempo, however, I was able to get into it, change my frame of mind, and toughen up for the last few miles. After that point I started to feel pretty strong which was great for such a long workout, and I felt like I could have kept going after the 6th lap (though I was certainly getting tired). The only downside of the workout was that after about 4 miles I started to get some serious stomach pain and needed to go to the bathroom very badly... I was able to push through, but it wasn't pleasant.
After the workout we jogged to the track and did a 300m, 200m, and 100m at about mile race pace (51s, 32s, 14s) to get the legs going a little faster.
This turned out to be a much longer day than I had really budgeted for, but all of it felt good so I'm alright with it. Just means that my recovery tomorrow will be easier, and I might not go for the morning run that I had been planning on.