Mile Repeats

Goal:
Mile Repeats with 1:30 rest at 5:32-5:40

Actual:
2.2 mile warmup
4x1 mile with 400m rest
5:38 (2:35)
5:33 (2:28)
5:32 (2:46)
5:28
2.6 mile cool down

5.5 miles in the pm for 15 miles total

Finally - victory!  I would prefer that I dominate workouts on Tuesdays because the week inevitably is off on a better note, but I'll take a late one.  Another early morning was spent again at the Dilworth Speed loop.  Quite possibly my second home, the Dilworth speed loop is where I'll be doing the majority of my workouts until marathon training starts in September.  What was nice about this morning was the cool breeze, the company of Matt Jaskot, and the distance of the workout.  Four miles of workout is really easy to prepare for mentally, so I figured it would go well.  Spada, Eric, Matt and I all took off from the corner of Worthington and Dilworth Road East for our first repeat and simply ran two loops of the two mile loop.  The first repeat was rather uneventful.  We jogged back to the top of the hill for the start of the second one, and Spada and Eric took off.  I was a comfortable distance behind them and I heard Eric say something to Spada as they reached the middle of the uphill.  Suddenly, I blazed past them.  Don't get me wrong, I didn't actually speed up whatsoever.  Instead, they had slowed down.  I smiled mockingly and said, "Wow you guys really slowed down on this uphill" and barreled past.  After 200m they caught back up, but again I stayed strong on the uphill portions.  Eventually, they caught me on the flat surface (darn) and we finished the interval.  During the rest, Eric told me he slowed down so much because he saw 5:10 pace on his Garmin for the downhill segment.  As his coach, I used my infinite wisdom to tell him that in a race, if that were to happen, he would have been passed by Caleb Boyd and that sometimes it's just best to rely on your own instinct than your Garmin.

On the third interval, it felt just as easy as the one before, but a tad bit faster.  On the fourth, we ran the same course as the second one and I noticed that Eric didn't look at his pace on his Garmin until after he crested the uphill.  I was proud of him.  He hit his target of sub 5:20 too!  I ran a controlled 5:28 and was pleased with the effort.  Mark wants to make sure that I feel like I could add on some more intervals when I finish my speed workouts.  I definitely felt like that today, although I wasn't complaining about stopping.

I'm already at 70 miles for the week, and I'm on target to hit 100 miles if I double tomorrow.  I'm not that obsessed with hitting triple digits quite yet, so I'll likely be in the mid 90's instead, which will still be my highest mileage ever.  I can already feel the effects of high mileage:  constant hunger, constantly yawning, constantly yearning a nap, going a couple of days without a shower, and cleaning soaking wet and sweaty clothes.  It's all worth it!