Notes
Long tempo workout with Drew. 2.5 warm-up that went by way too fast then I forced us to begin (Drew wasn't sure about any workout today).
1) 6:13. Slow out the gate but acceptable to start and with a net incline.
2) 6:09. Another mile with climbs.
3) 5:48. Turnaround point, which meant mostly downhills from here on out. Sadly though, once again we hit the stronger-than-expected/desired wind on the way back.
4) 5:53. I missed the mile 3 split and apparently was confused when looking at this split as I swore I saw 6:05. 6:05 including the main downhills was unacceptable, which led to:
5) 5:36. I buckled down and the conversational pace Drew and I had been having quickly became silence. Still, I was quite surprised by the time as I didn't think I dropped 30sec per mile. In hindsight it makes sense, we had been doing ~5:50 for 2 miles and I picked us up by ~15sec.
6) 5:44. A slight return to normalcy, but I'd done my damage to Drew and he stopped after this mile.
7) 5:41. Tried to stay focused on the task and surprisingly did well, though I had plenty of thoughts of stopping with 7 miles as being alone and heading back into the wind were not so fun.
8) 5:46. But I still felt ok after 7 so I continued on to the goal of 8 miles. This included a couple U-turns which was annoying but also came with the glory of running with the wind at my back for a short bit.
8 miles inf 46:50, 5:51 pace. Pretty similar to long tempos in the past. Maybe the misread split was a good thing as it forced me faster. On the other hand, it might have been nice to just feel like I was cruising at 5:50 longer.