Notes
Passing through Cedar Rapids to get home and once again forced upon us a workout. Chase joined us as well.
The anticipation got us running fast immediately, so I made us slow down before our start and use the downhill to gather speed. I decided on 2-mile tempos for no reason other than I did 1 milers recently and a single 4-mile tempo before that.
Chase seemed primed on the first mile while I thought we were fast and laid off the pace. That probably led to an inconsistent mile in 5:51. The 2nd mile seemed to have more resolve and an uphill to charge up. 5:45.
3 min rest. Then back down the hill to get us started quite fast before relaxing again. 5:39 and Chase was done. The next mile at times felt great and fast, but also uneasy with the plan to do 2 more.
3 min rest again. Out for a 1/4 mile before an ill-timed 180 with a car pulling by us. The short section of sidewalk felt great though (which is motivating to remember we did this on a crushed limestone path without flats on). 5:46. We opted to choose the shorter route back since Drew was chaffing. And we knew that meant doing a solid hill. We'd been charging uphill all day and that trend remained. I was happy with how I felt going up and even happier that I managed to recovery decently and get back on pace for the 1/2 mile after the hill.
Not sure if this is quantifiably much better than last Monday's workout, but it feels better. 6 miles of hard effort and my breathing held through. Not to say it was near perfect; I had a side-ache at times, my nose was congested, and I seemed to swallow a lot of saliva. But at least I feel like I'm progressing and not going to resort to drastic measures (like trying Drew's old inhaler).