Last night I ran intervals, and that basically concluded my 8-week Runner's World Smart Coach Training Program. Sure, I am supposed to take today and tomorrow off, and then race on Sunday, but I raced this past Saturday, and 2 of the previous 3 weekends, too. Plus we'll be visiting with lots of family this weekend--hey maybe I'll organize a little family 5K fun run!
Anyway, I was saying...oh, yeah...yesterday was interval training day. Overall, it wasn't a really tough training day, just 3x800m @ 4:05, 400m recovery jogs, and a total mileage of 5 miles, including warm up and cool down. The only catch was that J had a baseball game at 6 PM, so I either had to get it in before the game, or later in the night, which really just meant that I might opt not to do it. So I headed up early to the ball fields, which are at one end of a really nice trail, and set out for my run.
I started off with a nice easy 1.5 mile warm up at a 10:46/mile pace, and the proceeded to run half mile intervals in 3:55, 3:54, and 3:46, with quarter mile recovery jogs in between (since I was on a trail, I set my Garmin to .5 mile/.25 intervals, rather than 800m/400m). I wrapped it all up with another 1.5 miles for cool down.
In total, I covered 5.25 miles in 54:41, with an average pace of 10:25/mile, and an average heart rate of 156. Not bad, huh?