Notes
2 up, 15 of alternating MP and MP + 60, 1 down
On miles: 5:31, 5:32, 5:31, 5:31, 5:27, 5:27, 5:26, 5:25
Up at the lakes park in Minneapolis, it was a little warmer than I'd have preferred with temps around 70 at the start. After the crappy steady state this week I lowered my expectations for this and planned to start at 5:30-ish for the on miles. The first 4 were quite easy, and was really feeling like I was holding the effort back and running conservatively. The last 4 I let myself pick it up and start running a little harder which felt good. The pace was no issue throughout the hard miles, but I took a lot of gels and water throughout so was feeling a little full towards the end which I could feel on the hard miles. The off miles around 6:30 I thought might feel kinda hard, but it was slow enough that I was able to feel like I was recovering and nice to still be running a good clip and not trotting slow. I really enjoyed this workout and breaking up the hard miles made it go by a lot faster and feel pretty easy too
Nutrition wise I took a Maurten gel before starting, and I carried a plastic water bottle at the start too. I carried the water bottle for the first 8-ish miles of the run, and 3 hard miles, which was kinda annoying but was nice to get 15 oz of water in over the first part. I took a Maurten caf gel at 6.5 miles, a regular Maurten at 10.5, and a Maurten caf at 14.5. All the gels settled well, but the last 2 hard reps after the last gel I definitely kinda felt like a Maurten-stuffed thanksgiving turkey lol. Overall a really good day in some warmer than ideal conditions