Notes
Training plan stated Aerobic Intervals 8 x 600m. Since I'm on a business trip, I found a track less than the mile from the hotel - cool! Warmup run to the track was a 9:55 mile. To me it looked like the track team was practicing, and the lacrosse team was practicing on the field. I started jogging around the first turn and straightaway to determine where my starting and stopping points for my 600m intervals would be. I decided I would start going into the far turn and end at the beginning of the near turn.
I started my first interval - about halfway through the turn one of the girls from the track team ran past me on the inside. I looked over and saw she was in uniform (that's strange...). As I came around the turn and headed up the straightaway, I saw a bunch of adults in track suits waving me off the track. One of them finally yelled "there's a race in progress". OOPS! I started my workout in the middle of a track meet! Luckily, they were in the middle of the second to last race, so I waited for the meet to finish.
When I finally started my intervals - for real - I had been idle for about 20 minutes. I guess that's probably how it will be leading up to a race anyway. I ended up running a bit too hard at the beginning and running out of steam. After 4 intervals I wanted to quit, but I kept pushing myself. After the 6th interval I thought I was done, but for some reason I ran past the opening in the fence, in the middle of the straightaway so I pushed through one more interval. After 7 I was toast. I still found the energy to run the mile back to the hotel - in 11:13.
My 600m intervals were 2:35, 2:38, 2:39, 2:39, 2:51, 2:51, 2:47 - All between a 6:56 and 7:39/mile pace, which are all under a 24 minute 5K pace. Will I be able to keep that pace up for 5K a month from now???