Mile repeats

I added a new wrinkle to my 8-mile workout this morning by mixing in three one-mile repeats at 10k pace. I was huffing and puffing out there.

A couple of days ago when I saw that this workout was coming up, I did the math, and the result was a little bit of doubt that I could do it. A 10k pace for me is about 8 min. per mile, and this workout was laid out this way: 2 miles of warmup, 1 mile at 10k pace, 1/4 mile jog, 1 mile at 10k pace, 1/4 mile jog, 1 mile at 10k pace, finish up at an easy pace.

Last night I described the workout to Kay, who quickly coached a little confidence into me with the simple statement, "You've done it before, haven't you? You should be able to do it again." She was right.

I felt pretty fresh starting out, and after two miles I turned it on and did a mile in 8:07. The first half of this mile was uphill, so I was happy with this one. During that mile I decided to jog for a half mile before my next mile repeat, but after a quarter mile I changed my mind and decided to get the next one over with. I don't know exactly what that split was, but I was watching the lap pace readout on my watch, and it was something around 7:53.  I recovered for the third repeat for about a half mile, then did the last mile in about 7:55. After that, it was just a matter of finishing up the last 2.5 miles at a normal pace.

Overall, the workout was 8.4 miles in 1:14:57, an 8:56 pace. It was a good workout.