Last Training Run Before The Race!

I am officially complete with my "Fast 5K" Training Plan!

On the schedule for today was Long Strides 6 x 150m with 250m recovery. I stayed up late last night watching the DNC (I had figured that after the Olympics I would be able to get myself to bed earlier...but that's not necessarily the case for the next few weeks with the political conventions now going on). My older son was kind enough to play alarm clock this morning - I heard him at 5:30am, which meant I could have rolled out of bed and jogged to the track to do my workout before the High School students came rolling in. However, I decided to stay in bed.

Since I didn't get out of bed until 6:30am, there was no way I was running this morning. Also, since school is in session, I didn't feel like going to the High School track either.

So, I hit the treadmill at the gym during a break in my day (an early lunch break?? I did have a conference call during my normal lunch hour, so I guess that's what I'll call it).

Since the treadmills at my gym don't have a display for meters (perhaps they show km, however, I couldn't figure out how to change the display from standard to metric), I was going to use time for my strides. I know that 150m at an 8:00/mile pace should take 45 seconds - so...the workout was 6 x 45 seconds at 7.5mph, then back down to jogging speed (today 5.4 mph) for the rest of the quarter mile.

I felt great! My HR barely got over 150. I decided to do the entire quarter mile at 7.5 mph for the last Stride interval before a half mile cooldown.

The only issue is that I wasn't setting the pace myself - the treadmill was setting it for me. I believe I'm OK hitting that 8:00/mile pace given the practice runs I have done over the past week and a half, but this would have been a good chance to do it one more time.

We'll see how everything comes together on Saturday. Wish me luck for a new 5K PR!