A.M. Ran with Jeff in racing flats. Felt good. Neural drive was there, even though it did not quite shine in the warm-up - 8:00 pace felt fast. The feet felt decent, both the achilles on the left and the top on the right. So decided 2x2 miles at 5:30 pace would be good. In the past I would have said 3x2 miles at 5:25 pace. But I am suspecting that the training effect is better if you take what you can do all out and cut it some. The effectiveness of the stimulus is not in how much it brings you down, but in the net difference between the loss of fitness from the stress and the gain of fitness in the recovery. And I am suspecting that this effectiveness is maximized at a respectable distance away from the start of the red zone. So we warmed up our usual 3.62. I gave Jeff the instructions. 10:58 is good, but 10:57 is bad - too fast. If you hit 81 do not slow down to 84 to make up, make it 83. The first one (first 2 miles of the FRB 5 Miler) went like this: 81.5 - 85.5 - 82 - 83 (5:32) - 79 - 83 - 82 - 82 (5:26, 10:58.2). Now you can say with 10:58 that Jeff was a sly fox and got everyout out of me that I was willing to give, but the truth of the matter is that I did pull alongside him in the last 0.5 to communicate that I did not want the pace to drop. The fifth quarter was interesting. I said - wow, I wonder why 5:30 feels like miles 6-8 of this years SLC half when I was trying to hang on to BJ. Then I saw the split - the pace was 5:16, not 5:30, no wonder it felt so hard. HR was 156 after the first mile, then 158 after the fifth quarter, and then it gradually drifted to 160 maxing out at 162. We jogged 0.5 with a VPB in the middle, and then started the next one from the turnaround of the FRB 5 Miler. It went like this: 81 - 82 - 83 - 82 (5:28) - 82 - 81 - 83 - 79 (5:25, 10:53.8). I felt strong and communicated by pulling alonside Jeff in a few places that I wanted the fast pace to stay fast. So it was a bit faster than the 10:58 too fast cut off, but I felt a little faster was OK on the second one. The last two quarters were up a small grade and are usually about 1-2 second slower than the others with the same effort in our tempo runs. HR was at 160 by 1.5, got to 162 with a quarter to go, and then peaked at 167 in the last quarter. Cooled down to 10 miles. Total time was around 1:10:43 if I remember right. Then 2.15 with Benjamin barefoot at Footprinter's field in 18:48. To my disappointment it got aerated. P.M. 2 with Jenny in 17:29. Julia ran the first 1.5 with us in 13:32. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:12. Wore Crocs.
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