Three Miles Repeats - Take Two!

Goal: 3x3 miles at 605-610 pace with 4 min rest
Actual: 3x3 miles at 18:53 (640, 613, 600), 18:17 (611, 618, 548), 18:00 (607, 606, 547)

This morning Mike Beigay was kind enough to meet up a little bit earlier than usual (for me at least) at 530am at the Dowd YMCA. This meant that I needed to wake up before 5am so that I could be out of my house at 518am to run the 1.5 miles over to the Dowd and meet him. For the first time in a while, our workout group was just a pack of 2. Lat Purser joined in eventually, but I'll get to that later.

Mike and I headed down Morehead and onto Kings to conclude our warmup in front of the tennis courts. Since the Booty Loop is just shy of 3 miles at 2.88, we wanted to push our starting line back so that we didn't have to go through the stop light at East Blvd and Kings. Turns out we picked the perfect starting line because we ended just short of the traffic light.

Mike and I came out to the Booty Loop on the assumption that it would be as well lit as a modern city should be. Well, we were wrong. We took off on the first set and realized immediately that Queens Road has 1 street light every 400 meters. This made it for a tricky footing situation as we trekked up the Queens hill in the pitch black. To make matters worse, when cars approached, their headlamps blinded us so that all we could see was a beam of light. This explains the 640 first mile split. Hey - at least we went out relaxed! On the flat portion, we cruised to a 613 and then closed on the downhill mile with a 600. I could tell by Mike's breathing that he was relaxed and controlled.

After a swig of water, our 4 minute rest had already ended and we took off again, with just enough light so that we could see the divots in the sidewalk. Again, on this set I felt relaxed and controlled. I felt my glutes and quads in the second mile of this set, and both Mike and I were startled when someone came sprinting behind us. Lat Purser was our surprise accomplice who had chased us down from the start of this set. He conquered his first interval and we cruised to the finish. I still couldn't hear any labored breathing coming from Mike. He was on fire!

For the third set, we ran a negative split perfectly. Mike warned me before the 2 mile that he was going to take off for the third mile, so for the last mile I was by my lonesome, but it was fun watching Mike switch to a different gear and watching Lat react. I didn't feel nearly as spent after this workout as I did the last time, so I feel like that it a step in the right direction. I'm pleased with how the workout turned out and I don't feel nearly as exhausted as I expected I would.