Thursday Track

In a hurry but want to get this down while it's fresh.  Hit the track this morning with 4x1600 planned.  Last session indicated 88-second laps might be a decent target, but I awoke tired and creaky so I figured I'd be happy with 90 flat.  Long story short, I felt good after a warmup and the repeats went as follows:

5:56
5:58
5:54

I relaxed a little too much during the second repeat and couldn't make up the time in the last lap.  I was delighted that the quickest repeat came last.  Notice there's only three.  By the 2nd or 3rd lap of the third repeat, I had pretty much given up the idea of doing another.  Just not going to fit that in this cycle, and I'm OK with that.  I see my improvement over the past couple months being mainly in the form of developing consistency, and I feel like my paces have improved also.  Today I didn't feel like I was working all that hard until the last two laps of the session.

During the recovery lap after the third interval, I decided that although I wouldn't try another fast 1600, I would cruise an easy repeat, looking for some sense of what my marathon pace will be.  After some not-so-quick mental calculation I figured somewhere in the low 7s would be a good place to start.  Finished easily in 7:05, feeling pretty good despite my tired legs.

I think today will mark the final 1600 session for this buildup, as I'll be continuing to try and drill down a pace for next month's marathon.  9 miles, 1:08.