Notes
Finally had really good weather for a long run. Stopped for water and an endurance tap at around 14K. Plan was to do the same run as last week except to completer the full 5K at MP and if I was feeling good to add another fast K. By 14K I had locked in a pretty consistent pace in the low 4:40's. I was feeling comfortable and knew I had a lot of energy in reserve. However I just couldn't up the pace significantly for the first K of MP work. I'm finding it really hard to increase effort naturally at the end of these runs. Knowing this I looked at my watch after each K to get an idea of what I needed to do. The next 3K were a little up and down but my body was responding to increased effort and my energy remained high. The last 2K I was able to finally drop the pace a good amount and finish really strong without leaving tempo zone. I did have some tailwind for the back half of the MP work.
I think my knee was also holding me back during the MP work as it was achy and disrupting my coordination. It was sore after, a little worse than last week but the lower hamstring was better today.
I was feeling so good after the 6K of MP pace work that I decided to run home and stretch out the run to 17 miles. The better conditions definitely made a huge difference but my knee does not like running fast late in runs.
4:12.1 last 6K
4:10.2 last 5K