Notes
Since my only quality day this week was Thursday's race, decided to do a LR workout today - went with my classic 3x4mi @ MP, 3' float. Did the Powder Point Bridge loop from two years ago. Aiming for "goal" MP (6:04), but was okay with being faster or slower depending on how I felt. It was a quick shock to the system when I got into it, but got over that quickly and felt really good on the first set. Thought I was in control and could go faster later, but actually I was probably being a bit aggressive... a guy in a truck slowed up and rolled alongside me to tell me I was going fast, which didn't help rein in my ego. Second set started fine, but had some patches to it... there was a hard-packed sand road which wasn't too bad, but once I turned onto the bridge it felt like I was facing into the wind, and then had a roller or two to deal with. Never doubted that I could finish the workout, but mindset switched from speeding up in the later stages to just holding it together. The 3rd set started uphill and I had to really work to get back onto the pace, and it never really got any easier... was pushing pretty hard the whole time, probably more so than I should have been. Quads were really tired. Was relieved when I heard the final beep!
Solid workout to cap a pretty good week. If we were closer to the 'thon I would want these types of workouts to be much tighter (feel more controlled and speed up throughout rather than working hard to hang on) but far enough out for now that I don't yet have a final idea of what GP should be. The middle 12.88 miles of this run were @ 6:10 pace, solid. 6:29 pace for ~2 hours is good too, and I imagine I could average faster with a more sustained, sub-marathon effort run - not sure if that's a worthwhile pursuit. Garmin PR of 80:34 for the HM in there as well.