A.M. Ran with Jeff. Decided to modify our quarters workout by stringing most of them together and running them a little slower. In other words, 74 second pace to failure or to 1.25. Based on how I felt on Tuesday I thought I could break my Five Finger PR in the mile (4:58) without too much blood. Plus I wanted to have the confidence of being able to run a sub-5:00 flat mile, something I have not done in a while. And for a bonus I wanted to go through the mile sub-5:00 and then keep going at a respectable pace for a little bit, even if it was just for a quarter. So Jeff paced me. I told him to be nice. He is learning. It is a benefit to him. Because if he learns to be nice to me over a short distance, he will also learn to be nice to himself over a distance three times as long. Jeff was exceptionally nice and paced it near perfect. 74 - 73.5 - 74.5 - 74 - 75. The last one was not Jeff's fault, I was struggling with the pace. So I reached my goals - 4:56 mile split (new Five Finger PR), and then another quarter in 75 past that. New flat 1.25 PR of 6:11.5, Five Fingers or not. HR maxed out at 170, but dropped to 168 near the end. Another indicator of muscular strength problem. But better than before. It felt good to go through the mile in 4:56 and not quite feel like I was racing the mile. In fact, I was comfortable enough to think that if I pushed the right buttons, I could hold this pace for a while, maybe even as long as a 10 K. Which still does not break 30:00, but it does break 31:00. Of course, there is a big difference between thinking that at the mile, and thinking that further along. I was not thinking that anymore 300 meters later, that is how fast you go downhill when leg power fails. But cardio was OK, surprise, surprise. The good news I can run 5:00 pace at HR of 168. The bad news I cannot hold HR of 168 for very long.
We jogged another couple of miles and then to give me more misery for the day ran a quarter in 68.4. I was happy with it because I felt strong and it was evenly split. In spite of the hard 1.25 interval earlier I was not fading in the last 100. Jeff suggested more misery for me - another quarter 200 meters later, but I declined using the excuse that we needed to hurry to get him to work, and another fast quarter would require a whole lot of recovery. We cooled down averaging around 7:00 in the last 3 miles. Total of 10.1. Then I ran 2 more miles with Benjamin pushing William in 17:25. P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:45. Julia ran 1.5 with us in 13:50. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:49.
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