Realized that I have two races next week, so would have no opportunity to do a 5k tune up race. My last track race was in 1998, in my BYU undergrad days. Next week I am doing a 10K on tuesday night (25 times around the track--yikes!) and then a 5k Saturday afternoon. Yiu Kit Cheng, who beat me on Sunday is signed up for both races, but is likely to just race the 5k. So I have been focusing mentally on the 5k. Competition=better race. If she doesn't show up to the 10K, a 38:00 should win it. If she does, then the winning time might be sub 37. Anyway. Roberto wanted to do a speed workout, and doing it today meant I am free tomorrow for a long run so we met this morning. Plan was 5 x 1000m @ 5k goal pace (3:30), 2 min rest between. No track was open that early, so we used the markers by the Fotan racetrack. There are 100m rowing marks along the river. Very accurate. There was some wind. Nothing terrible, but you can see how it affected my pace. First one started too fast, with the wind, 3:23, back the other way, 3:30, then 3:25, then 3:29, then 3:21 (some crying and groaning to eek this one out, but Roberto was calling for me to sprint). Roberto is a 3:38ish marathoner who has been injured, but has been cycling and then did a couple of weeks of jogging then WHAM jumps into my workout and can keep pace while harrassing me about going out too fast, or about how I should sprint at the end. A couple of weeks ago it was Tom telling me to push the last 1k of a tempo. I am so impressed by these men who can do my workouts at a conversational pace. Very nice workout, a confidence builder. I am as ready as a 12 year track-race rust bucket can be :D | 