Big Workout, the last one for the training cycle. Route was Power Trail to Spring Creek to Poudre, and the workout was 4-3-2-1 at MP, with 4-minute, 3-minute, 2-minute recovery jog between respective sets. Weather was very warm: sunny and mid-50s, and I wore shorts, t-shirt, and no gloves. That is quite nice for Dec 29! However, it was also very windy, with gusts up to 30 mph (according to the weather report), although the "base" wind was more like 10 mph. I had a headwind for the first half of the workout, and tailwind for most of the second half. Splits were (5:23, 5:35, 5:33, 5:19-->net headwind for all these), (5:29, 5:05, 5:10-->headwind on the first one, tailwind on the last two) , (5:00, 5:08-->tailwind on both), (5:20-->split between headwind and crosswind). 16 miles total, averaged 6:09/mile overall. It was a pretty good workout. The headwind was not a total killer, since it was gusty and not steady, and faster turnover with the tailwind was nice, and probably beneficial to simulate some paces I may actually hit in Houston with a marathon-pace effort. The problem with training at altitude is that you usually never hit your sea level race-pace (unless there is a tailwind or downhill), so it can be a bit of a shock to the legs when you hit that kind of turnover for a sustained period.
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