Ted was still taking it easy for his foot injury this morning. So I ran alone. Felt sluggish in the warm-up. Ran the first quarter in 2:10 and it felt just right. After 2.4 warm-up ran the progression tempo on the standard 5 mile tempo course. The goal was to start at marathon pace and keep speeding up every mile. The first quarter did not go so well - 1:29. I figured the body was asleep and pressed harder. Next one in 1:26. I kept the pressure steady and hit 1:24 and 1:23 on the next two. First mile in 5:42. I must have awoken in the last two quarters, I figured, and now needed to ease off a bit on the pressure to keep the pace correct. Did 1:24 - 1:25 - 1:24 - 1:24 for 5:37 on the second mile. Did another quarter in 1:24, then hit some headwind and also used a bit of caution prior to the 180 turn at 2.5. This gave me a 1:26 quarter with 14:09 at the turnaround. Pressed harder immediately after 180 turn to get into the rhythm quickly. Next two quarters 1:24 and 1:22, 16:55 at 3 miles, third mile in 5:36, still on target for increasing the speed with every mile, even with the 180 turn. Eased off a bit on the pressure, 1:22 was too fast. Next mile consisted of 1:23 - 1:24 - 1:24 - 1:22, total of 5:33. I think the wind played a factor, hurting on the 1:24s and helping on the 1:22. Now I felt I had the goal in the bag. 5:33 felt hard, but still easy enough to where I could pull off a faster mile even with the uphill. The uphill quarter in 1:24, followed by a 1:23. With half a mile to go I started pressing. Possibly hit some small headwind, next quarter was only 1:23, and it should have been faster. Either that or I was just warn out from the earlier effort. Seeing that, I pressed even harder on the last quarter, and this time watched the pace carefully every 100 meters to make sure I was not slacking. Hit every 100 in 20 seconds, last quarter in 1:20, last mile in 5:30, got my goal, and as a bonus, broke 28:00 with 27:58, and set a new season record for the 2.5 stretch coming back - 13:49. Cooled down for the total of 10.15 for the run. Ran 0.5 with Julia in the afternoon. She is getting faster on her aerobic runs, we did 5:28 this time. Ran with Benjamin and Jenny right before dinner. Benjamin is tapering for Heart of Holladay 5 K, so we went only 1.5 and ran it in 13:51 (Benjamin took off on the last quarter and ran 13:42). Afterwards ran another 3.5 with Jacob in the stroller in 24:45 on the trail to Macey's and back. On the way up was going 7:15, on the way back 6:40 with only a slightly higher effort just from getting into the rhythm as the run progressed. The difference between 0.5% grade up and 0.5% down is greatly increased when pushing the stroller.
Untapering for the Heart of Holladay. This will be the most untapered 5 K I have ever run, but this time I have different goals.
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