Joseph asked in the comments when go time was. Oh yeah, that was last night.
First workout of the year was on tap - really the first workout since September since I've been battling these nagging injuries since then. Plan was for 30 minutes at 80%.
I dug out my flats - again the first time since the PDR. I love my flats (T4s) and have seriously considered running in them all the time. But that's probably just some crazy Letsrun talk.
I normally do all my tempo runs and track workouts at "my track". This is an old-skool abandoned 440 yard track that used to be the HS track for the town next door. Then, some years ago they built a new building and sold the old one off to 'Sunrise Living' or something like that. I think they still use the field for JV football practice or something like that since I'll sometimes see benches there, but the thing I like most about it is that it is usually deserted.
This is probably also because it is not lit. (Note to people who use unlit tracks - always jog one lap slowly to make sure no one left any benches, or oh, say, a rake on the track.)
It is ostensibly cinder, but over the years the traffic has slowly ground most of the cinders just into the dirt. Lanes? Markings? Ha! This time of year the track is pretty rutted from people using it while it's freezing and unfreezing, so when you're running it's all rolling divots and trying to stay in the middle of lane 1.
So it's not the fastest track in the world, but it is open and I can run to it. So I'll take it.
My plan was 5 miles at 6:15-6:30 pace - I ended up doing 5 at 6:12 pace (6:08,6:12,6:17,6:15,6:08).
Miles 1 and 2 were all elbows and knees and whoa crap what's going on, in mile 3 I forgot how to breathe (oh wait, you can use your stomach???), but by 4 and 5 I started to remember how to run like that and started getting faster at the same effort level. Last mile was nice and smooth and the easiest of the bunch.
My heart rate was higher than I thought it would be - 178 avg/182 max, so I was a little over my 80% target, but overall, it just felt moderately hard and no soreness or anything after, so I'm happy with that for a first real workout of the year.
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2 comments:
So, what does that tell you were you are with your fitness? It seems like you're actually in pretty freaking good shape, especially since you've been rehabbing an injury. This spells good news for your sub 16 stab.
Joseph:
I don't really know what it means. Looking back, I ran this same workout at 5:50-55 pace pretty regularly in the summer and the fall last year. But I didn't keep HR data for those. My gut says I ran those harder than I did this one. But I had also been running lots of tempo work then.
In short - no idea. I don't know what to make of it.
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