Objective: Fartlek Run - 10 miles w/8 x 20 sec. @ 3K pace.
Weather at 6:00 am: 26°F, 57% humiditiy, wind 6 mph SSW.
The sidewalks/roads were not condusive to a fast pace this morning. For the most part, they had been shoveled or plowed, but a patchy layer of snow/ice still remained. Some areas were better than that and some were worse. I had to trudge through a fair amount of snow, especially when crossing side streets where the met the road I was running on. I sometimes switched between the sidewalk and the shoulder of the road, whichever was clearer, but had to jump over a pile of snow plow gunk in order to do so.
I ran two miles to warm up, and then ran faster for about 20 seconds at the beginning of each remaining mile. It wasn't always precisely at the start of the mile because I would have to wait until I had a relatively clear stretch of road in front of me. My training plan says to run the faster sections at 3K pace, and according to McMillan, my 3K pace is 8:14. However, it was all I could do to run fast and keep an eye on the time so that I went for about 20 seconds. I had no idea what pace I was running. It turns out I ran quite a bit faster on those bits than I was supposed to. I didn't time the first one with the lap button, but my paces for the other 7 fast 20-second bits were 7:01/mi, 7:01/mi, 6:42/mi, 6:38/mi, 6:51/mi, 6:40/mi, 6:06/mi. I don't know whether it's okay to run the short distances at those speeds or whether I should try to slow down to around 8:14 next time I do a workout like this, which will be next Tuesday. But when I do it next Tuesday, the fast sections are supposed to be 25 instead of 20 seconds, and the next Tuesday after that, they are supposed to last for 30 sec. | 