After last week's workout I really wanted to do something shorter and faster to try to pick up some footspeed. I'm not really sure this would help for a marathon but I wanted to at least try to push the pain threshold. I talked to Daniel Eggers, who is starting to seem like my coach, and we came up with a plan to do three two-mile repeats with about three minutes rest in between. I would have to do this workout by myself and I headed over to McAlpine around noon (that's right, noon - I love my job) to see what would happen.
Once again, I wanted to push the pain, so I would need to go fast on this one. Eggers warned me not to start out too fast in case it caused me to "bonk" the rest of the workout. Completely ignoring that advice, I tore down the greenway like I was trying to run a personal-best 5k. I came through the quarter in 5:25 mile pace and for some reason it didn't click that I needed to, uh, slow the hell down. I came through the half at virtually that same pace and eventually had to slow way down to hit 6:02 for the first mile, which was about thirty seconds faster than I had planned to run. I'm not exactly sure why I was so excited, but after holding on for a 12:35 two-mile split I completely faded to a 13:56 (13:56!!) on the second set. I regrouped somewhat on the final set, running a 6:11 first mile and hanging on for sub-7 on the tail end of the last two-mile interval. In other words, this was a typical workout for me: I started out too fast, completely fell asleep in the middle set, and finished somewhat strong.
At least I pushed myself for part of it and I know that I still have some of that turnover in my legs. While it was very poor execution, I must say I had a blast on that first mile.
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