Loops of the park

This week called for a V02 Max of 5 x 1000. I haven't been able to find a good track in Toronto because of all the snow covering the ground. Also don't know of any tracks I could use in DC but I did Hains Point run in the East Potomac Park, which is a about 2.8 miles per loop or almost 4.5K.

The way I've done intervals or VO2 Max workouts is to hit the track, so the set and a jog recovery of a set time like 30 seconds or two minutes. I didnt' feel like resetting my Garmin all the time, so I decided to do 5X1000 by running 1000 metres (1K), do a recovery kilometre, then launch into the second. Without the track as feedback, I had to use the Garmin's pacer to give me an idea of how fast I was doing. It's often not a very accurate indicator so I relied mostly on feel and effort rather than going by time.

I tried to picture the 5K race over the last weekend, since it's exactly the pace I should have been running. The last 5K was done at 3:54 minute kilometres, so my target would be 4 minute kilometres veering faster or slower depending on wind, etc. It was not easy as doing this by feel was to run at a fast but not sprint speed. I did my striders yesterday in the same park so at least I had a benchmark. During each 1000 metre speed session, I tried to focus on staying upright, moving my arms back and forth without crossing the body, and focus on proper breathing. During a few segments when I felt I was gutting it out, my breath was out of control but it was pretty good for the most part.

Here are my kilometre splits of the 10+ mile run (17K) run. All the intervals were done within the East Potomac Park loop.

1K: 4:44
2K: 4:50
3K: 4:42
4K: 3:56 (6:21 mile pace)
5K: 4:50
6K: 3:52 (6:14 mile pace)
7K: 5:05
8K: 4:03 (6:32 mile pace)
9K: 4:59
10K: 3:54 (6:16 mile pace)
11K: 4:54
12K: 4:00 (6:26 mile pace)
13K: 5:26
14K: 5:12
15K: 4:56
16K: 4:36
17K: 4:39

Total run: 17K/10.57 miles in 1:18:49 with average pace of 7:27/4:38

One entirely surprising thing about the run was the average pace (7:27m/4:38k) and the types of splits I was doing before, between and after the 5X1000. Marathon pace of 4:45 is definitely feeling close to normal running pace. My next run is a 15 miler with 12 miles at marathon. I'm going to target 4:40Ks to 4:45Ks or 7:30 miles to 7:37 miles.

Note to self that I did 10.7K/6.6 miles yesterday with 6x100