Decent evening interval workout: 5 x 1000m

 Today I went to the Turia park at 06:40 p.m. already dark with my brother. We were doing completely different workouts though, but did the warm up together and the cool down. The plan for me was to do 5 x 1000m with 400m jog rest. I had more than a year that I did not do 5  x 1000m as we always do 4 x 1k, but if we want to move the needle we have to push ourselves and its time to to increase to 5 x 1000m. To be honest this workout went much better than expected. I thought that with the disaster that I did on Sunday, 4:45-4:50 would be a real struggle today, but I did much better than expected. Not my usual splits, but not too far either, and I did 1 repeat more than usual, which hurts a lot more. 

I warmed up 16 mins easy and then did some leg swings, and then did 4 x 100m strides at the pace that I wanted to run the workout, splits were 27, 26, 27, 27 and felt easy and controlled. 

Then started the workout. Splits were: 4:36, 4:38, 4:28, 4:31, 4:24. First 2.5 repeats were with  a head wing. 3rd repeat was out and back. Very happy and satisfied with the workout, these splits dont reflect at all my performance on Sunday. I signed up for a 5k on Sunday in a county, I should run better than on Sunday, but given that is not a certified course, I cannot trust the distance, but all in all this workout tells me that I am in much better shape than I showed on Sunday.

Today I wore my windbreaker for the first time. The weather was in 14 degrees, but it was at night with a bit of wind. If I had worn short sleeves, I would not warmed up at all. I think that affected me in the race. After our warm up, we lasted in the starting area for 30 mins and we lose our heat in that waiting. when the gun goes off, you basically are huffing and puffing cold. Another thing, is that I did not do strides and I think that affected me as well. 

From now on, I will incorporate strides at the pace I want to run the race/ workout. That worked pretty well today. 

My brother did pretty well in his 4 x 1 mile with 1 min rest at 10k race pace. He did better than race pace and felt pretty good. 

He is training for a marathon in February and I am his coach. Lets see if I can make him run sub 4 hours. 

16:22 easy cool down to home. Around  10k for the day. I was afraid to wear my wind breaker at the beginning, because I thought that I would fry myself once I warmed up, but that was not the case, I did just fine with the windbreaker and never felt hot, quiet the opposite, I thik that I still ran cold.

I always say that this weatther only helps on long runs and race over 10k. For races under 5k and under , cold can be an hindrance especially for us slow runners that cannot enter the corral within 5 mins before starting the race.

No more complaining, in my book I ran a good workout.