Day 74

I've been feeling a need for speed, but just haven't been able to shake the idea that a track workout at my current state of conditioning may prove to be counter-productive especially with all the additional milage I've been running. As a compromise to myself I decided to attempt a fartlek style workout instead.

Distance: 5.0 miles
Duration: 39:28
Pace: 7:53
HR Avg/Max: 154/178
notes:
After a 1.5 mile warm-up at about 8:30 pace I started my fartleks. I wound up running 7 legs of increased speed, each one for about 45 sec to 1 minute in duration, with .4 to .5 miles of recovery running in between. Reviewing the data it looks like I ran about a 4:45 pace for each segment and an 8:30 pace for recovery. All the distances and times were pretty informal as I tried to just do what felt right. When I felt ready for another speed-up I would just pick a target, like a bush or a house, and run to it. All in all I found this to be a pretty rewarding workout and hope to start incorporating more fartleks into my training while slowly increasing the pace, frequency, and duration.