Good track workout. Nice to have Raj along for company. Warmed up with 3 easy miles, also one of Raj's friends ran with us for this part. We ran about a 9ish pace. Nice cool weather (just above 50 degrees).
Headed over to the track and got started. Goal was 4 x 1600 @ 6:00 each. Somewhat daunting because last time was 3 x 1600 @ 6:07 and I just barely made each one. On the other hand I have done this before (back in the fall before getting injured). On the first repeat I forgot to start my watch and didn't notice until the first lap around the track. Started the watch and figured I would average what I got for the final 3 laps. My pace was not looking good at first and I had trouble going faster than 6:30 but I slowly seemed to get a little faster. Time for last 3 laps was 4:35. Raj was behind me and thought it looked like I finished at about 6:05, which was great considering how bad it was looking at first. Next repeat went very well, finished in 5:57, last two also were good with 6:00, and 6:01. Pushed really hard on the final one and thought I would make it. Cooled down afterward with about 1.5 miles of easy running. Average was very close to the hoped for 6:00 time. Very happy to get one under 6:00 and to finish all 4 of them faster than the ones I did last month when I just did 3 repeats instead of 4. Part of the credit for this morning's success goes to Jenny and the heating pad that she made for me. I had never heard of making a heating pad, I had envisioned buying one that you plug in. This is basically a small pillow filled with dry rice and buckwheat groats. You microwave it for about 3 or 4 minutes and it's good for about 10 minutes worth of heat. It weighs around 5 pounds so it is heavy enough to apply a nice even pressure. Last night, I used this on the upper hamstring area that had been bugging me and it helped out quite a bit!!
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