I headed down the trail this morning in my flats to do a couple miles at tempo pace. The goal was to keep it at 5:30 - 5:40 pace since I was expecting my legs to feel pretty stale, plus I didn't want to stress them too much at this point. I ran a 2.5 mile warm-up and did some strides to loosen up. The strides felt stiff, but I loosened up pretty quick once I got into tempo pace.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the first half in 2:35. I passed Sasha and Jeff going the other way between the half and mile, which I hit in 5:12, and flipped a 180 and headed back. I eased off the pace a bit to around 5:30 - 5:33, but Sasha and Jeff joined in once I passed them. We sped up a little over the last half mile, maybe 5:20 pace or so, and finished with 10:38 as the final time. Second mile in 5:26.
That first mile got me pretty excited, it felt so good. I thought I had lost a lot during the swimming phase, but I think I'm still in pr range for 5k. If the Rex Lee run is measured correctly, given the slight hills it's got, I think I can dip under 16:00.
After the short tempo, I finished up with Sasha, Jeff, and Matt, who joined with us, for about 5.5 more miles. | 