W4D5

The life schedule necessitated another change in the running schedule. Rather than a rest day, Saturday's workout was moved up to Friday after work. The schedule called for a 5K race with a 2 mile warm up and a 1 mile cool down. 5K's on a Friday night are hard to come by.

I decided to modify things a little by heading over to marked trail on the San Gabriel River Bike Path. I modified the 5K to a simpler 3 miles. I kept the warm up nice and easy at around 10:20 pace. My goal for the 3 mile section was 8:00 miles.

I took off down the path at a pretty good clip. I hit the first mile mark in 7:46. "Whoa there Nellie, slow down a little or you'll never make it to the end", I thought to myself. I kept on going. At 1.5 miles I was beginning to wonder if I could really keep up the pace for 3 miles. It had been a long time since I tried to do anything even remotely resembling speed. I hit the second mile mark in 7:27. what, what, WHAT!! Way faster than expected. I tried to slow down a bit for mile 3, but I still came in at 7:27. I think I sped up a little near the end to just get the thing over with. 7:34 pace overall is way beyond what I expected out of this run. You can bet I took it nice and easy for the 1 mile cool down.

I'm calling this a successful little test of the speed capabilities. Yasso says "the point this week is to go out and enjoy racing." Although I only raced myself, I'd have to say I did enjoy it.