Woke up tired and missing that snap I felt yesterday. Perhaps I should have done today's workout yesterday when I was feeling good? Ran 5.8k warm up around Kowloon Tsai Park (was going to do a track workout at the Joint Sports Centre by Baptist U). I wanted to improve my stamina for my track 10k, so wanted to do 10 x 1000m at 10k goal pace, but what should the rest be? This is when being your own coach is no fun. I wanted it to mirror a 25 x 400m workout from college. Those had only 30 sec rest, so that would be 12:00 rest between sets. I thought 90-120 sec would be good for this, but 120 between gave me 18 min rest, way too much for it to be akin to the 400m workout, 90 sec was 13:30 of rest in the workout, much closer. I couldn't stomach the idea of a shorter rest, though I think that could be a nice way to tighten the screw next time. Anyway. Goal pace is 3:40, 36:40k pace. This shouldn't be hard at first but the short rests should make it get harder over the workout. 200m = 44sec. 1 - 3:42, my first 200m is 46-47, I am too relaxed! At 600m I am only at 2:15, still behind, pull an 87 last 400m to get a 3:42. This rep was stressful, and made me just want to quit. WHO ORDERED THIS STUPID WORKOUT ANYWAY? I don't feel like I can do the workout at this point, all the bad runner psychology is running through my head, "I am too old for racing, this is a good time to hand in the towel," you name it. I decide to do one more, and just see how many I can string together between 3:40 and 3:45. (1:31 rest) 2 - 3:38, much better. Started out faster so I wasn't running from behind. Feeling like I can probably string some of these together (1:32 rest) 3 - 3:40, I think 30% done! (1:31 rest) 4 - 3:39 ( 1:31 rest) From the third rep on I am focusing on being efficient so I can complete the workout. If I run smoothly, don't get into oxygen debt, and expend as little energy as I can and still get my splits, I will make it through 5 - 3:39 ( 1:31 rest) 6 - 3:38 ( 1:31 rest), take a gu after #6 7 - 3:38 (1:31 rest) 8 - 3:38 (1:31 rest) I am feeling good 9 - 3:35 (1:31 rest) I am happy but thinking now I have to do a 3:30 for my last one to beat this one 10 3:27, 40, 43, 43, 43, 41 and done! Total time (adding 5 sec for truncation) 36:19. How many seconds do you think I have to add to get a realistic 10k pace? 30? 45? 60? PM: thirty minutes easy, first 3.4k with my son, then another 2k on my own.
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