Notes
Not quite the great, confidence-boosting workout I was looking for, but it got done, and actually my attitude and mentality was great throughout and I just accepted the conditions of the day, so I was proud of that. Additionally, looking back, I really did accomplish the work I wanted to, so I think it was a success. Overall the biggest distinction between what I did and what I intended to do was the total mileage of the day, but I'll have time to make it up later in the week, so no harm done.
intended workout:
3 mile workout
2 miles @ threshold
1 mile easy jog
15-20x [30 seconds hard, 90 seconds jog]
2-3 mile cooldown
13-14 miles total
Actual workout:
3 mile warm-up; - I was quite cold and stiff from the get-go. It was 33 degrees, and my entire 3 mile warm-up was directly into a cold, sustained, strong head-wind. Even at the end of my warm-up as I was starting my threshold piece, my quads were very cold and I had a hard time with any sort of real power output.
2 miles @ threshold: It was very clear form the start of my 2 miles that "threshold" was going to be a relative term today. My threshold pace is probably somewhere around 6:40 pace, and in my cold state and directly into a brutal headwind, I wasn't going to be anywhere near that pace unless I was at a lot harder than threshold effort. It just wasn't going to be there today. It was a continuous 2 mile threshold and my splits were 6:55 and 6:58. It felt a little pathetic to be working that hard for splits that are slower than my intended marathon pace a few weeks from now, but that's what the day brought. All in all my goals for the miles at threshold were to get a good, threshold effort and to get really warmed up for my faster pieces, and I definitely accomplished that.
I didn't end up doing a mile job in between threshold and starting my fast pieces. It was quite cold, and I didn't want to sacrifice any sort of warmth I had generated in 8 minutes of easy jogging. I was also feeling slightly mentally drained after having to work so hard to run 6:55. I opted to just recovery jog for 2 minutes and then went straight into the next portion.
15x [30 seconds hard/90 seconds recovery]. This portion of the workout went better than the threshold. Prior to the workout I was hoping "hard" meant something around 800 pace. I was more along the lines of mile to start, but as I went I loosened up and continued to warm up more, and I was right around 800 pace or even slightly faster the later reps. As I went I started to feel lighter and faster, and was definitely absolutely hauling by the end. The real goal for this workout overall was to get a lot of speed work on the roads as opposed to on the track, and I definitely accomplished that. It was 30 straight minutes of intense speed and then active recovery. I also tried to keep my recovery pace as close to a true distance run pace as opposed to a slow, sloggy jog as I could, and because of that the recovery portion became taxing as well. Speed overall ended up feeling great. Reps 8-13 were probably the best, and then I could tell I was getting really fatigued for reps 14 and 15. Got to 30 minutes and felt like that was the right amount for the day.
And again, the cool down got shortened because of temperature and a brutal wind, and a stomach that was becoming less tolerant. And also I just became a wimp and didn't want to do a 3-4 mile cool down.
I finished my last faster piece in the direction away from our house, and then jogged the mile or so ish back home.
Happy with the effort, and I think I accomplished what I set out to accomplish, even if portions of the workout felt harder than they should have for the actual paces I was running. I'll consider it a good workout for the week, and I have time to incorporate a few extra miles later if it seems appropriate and beneficial as the week goes on.