5xMile Repeats

Goal:
6xmile repeats with 2:30 rest

Actual:
2.5 mile warmup
5xmile with 2:30 jog rest (~400m) at 5:45, 5:38, 5:36, 5:33, 5:30
2.8 mile cool down for 11.3 miles total

Earlier this year, I told Stephen Spada that I would be doing all of my workouts early in the morning, and, so far, I've kept true to that statement.  Actually, almost too true since we started today before Spada had arrived.  Billy, Mike, Eric and I started the workout promptly at 6:06am for our respective workouts.  Eric and I were doing mile repeats, and Billy and Mike were doing a fartlek of sorts.  The goal was to start out fairly conservative, at 5:45 pace and then to get gradually faster.  I knew this would be a tough day for me because my legs are still tired from last weekend's races.  Eric and I hit the target time on the first one, and then really pushed on the second one to hit a time that's more in line with our goal pace in some races.

At the end of the second one, I noticed Spada's car along the loop and realized he must be out on the course somewhere.  About five seconds later, he materialized from behind and hopped in with us, but greeted us with the silent treatment to make us pay for leaving him behind.  He's got a talent at making me feel terrible, that's for sure.  Note to self: never leave without Spada, ever again.  We started the third one and I told Spada he could just destroy us on the intervals to make us suffer both mentally and physically.  He kind of did this and at least pushed us to finally start hitting some more respectable times.

For the last couple of intervals, it was purely the company of Spada and Eric that kept me going forward.  My mind was easily shutting off today, so when I woke back up, I would fight hard to tuck back in behind the guys so they didn't get too far ahead of me.  Even though I didn't do all six intervals, I'm happy with the fact that I pushed through when it was really the last thing my legs wanted to do.  My legs felt heavy and uncooperative, and this was essentially the maximum speed that I could muster out of them.  I really want to start seeing some faster times in my training, but I think that is difficult to see as much on the roads versus the track.  I'm excited to do 400m repeats in a couple of weeks to really test my speed out.

In the end, I'm just glad this workout is over and now I can focus on running a decent time at Cherry Blossom next Sunday.  I found out that the elite women's start was expanded to include all women who run faster than 63 minutes for the 10 miler, which is exciting because that means that I'll have more people to pace off of.