mile repeats

I thought I was in a pure base phase of training this spring but I decided to do some intervals this week and next in preparation for Pineland Farms 25K. I run for fun and race for excitement and neither treadmills nor tracks fit into this worldview. Back Cove is the closest thing to a track that I run, and it's a pretty nice substitute. Good surface, good scenery, good social scene, sometimes even a good smell if the wind is blowing from the bean factory or if it's low tide or if I'm running past the sewage treatment plant.

Today the goal was a short run with 3 X 1 mile repeats with full mile recoveries at back cove. I didn't do my homework before lacing up so I figured a 1 mile repeat must be about 5K pace. In the fall my 5K pace was around 6 min/mile but that was at the end of last season and back cove is a little slow so I took it a little slower and did 6:12, 6:06, 6:08. The first quarter mile of these felt great, the middle 1/2 mile felt do-able but hard, and the last quarter mile of each I wondered why the hell I was doing this. But if we're not thinking this then we're not working hard. And I only did three. The recoveries were at about a 8:20-8:30/mile pace - it's really hard to run much slower after just running fast. Anyway, got it done, finished the 6+ miles in 45 minutes, and I'm ready for some afternoon work. And it's way more fun to do this at back cove than some HS track.

But to procrastinate a little more, I did use the McMilan running calculator to check my pace. I'm not sure of my fitness but I put in 19:00 5K time, which seemed reasonable for back cove and at this point in my training. The calculator gave me a 1600m repeat time of 6:05-6:18, so my guestimate was spot on.

distance - 6.1 m

time - 45:09

nutrition - not enough - I need some effingham