W7D4

8 miles speedwork - that's all the schedule said. The description said not to worry about the miles, with the warm up and cool down the actual speedwork amounted to 3 miles. The rest was left up to me. Pretty fuzzy. I don't do fuzzy very well. I need rules, guidelines, parameters. Tell me what to do and I'll do it. I'd figured something out but I wasn't completely at ease with it.

8 miles speedwork - that's what the Yasso schedule in the book said. I took a look at the RW version. It said "2 mile warm up, 3 x 1 mile @ 10K pace, w/400 meter recovery, 2 mile cool down TOTAL: 8 miles." Now that's some rules, guidelines and parameters. That I can work with. That I can do.

Mile repeats meant I was headed back to the San Gabriel River Trail for this one. The trail is marked in 1/4 mile increments. After a 2 mile warm up it was time for the mile repeats. My 10K goal pace was 8:57 based on the 10K I ran back in November. I took off and settled into a pace that was fast but comfortable. The first repeat came in at 8:13; faster than expected but it felt comfortable, fast yes but doable. The second one came in at 8:21 and the third at 8:04. I followed that up with about 3 miles at 10:00 pace.

I did the mile repeats at a pace faster than 10K but at a pace I was easily able to maintain. Hopefully I didn't do any harm. It felt right. So I don't always follow the rules but at least I had an understanding of what they were.

On the way home I saw one of these. Now that's more rare than any bunny or hawk.