I won't know for another 9 days if my legs are ready to go 26.2 miles. But I already know my legs are ready to go fast. The interval work has gotten better and better. Today I had just planned to do 3 X 1600 at somewhere around 7:00 pace as part of an 8-miler. Got up around 8:30 (first day I haven't had to get ready for work in 18 days), had some breakfast, goofed around on the Internets, then went out just after 10:00. Beautiful, clear, cold day in the Ozarks, probably 38 degrees, breezy, not a hint of a cloud.
Ran over to the park, then warmed up with two laps, hit the timer and accelerated. Each mile is 1.25 laps, but the Garmin made it easy, since it would show an end of a lap at the right time. Looked down and saw 6:41. OK, a little fast but OK. Trotted around the rest of that lap to recover, then hit the lap button and took off again. This time, 6:38, but it felt a lot harder than that. Wind was picking up, for one thing. Trotted the rest of the lap, and by this point I was tired enough that I wasn't sure I could push another entire mile, but I decided to do what I could. So I hit the lap button and off I went. This one was HARD, but I kept pushing. Got to the end, looked down, 6:31. Basically I'd just run 3 miles in less than 20 minutes; considering my 5K PR is 21:57, I think I would have smoked that PR. | 