Tempo run: 25 mins in the Blasco Park

Yesterday I took the day off, because when I left work I had to cook dinner with my housemate, so no time to run in the evening and as I pretty much run in the evening on the work week, I missed the run.

Today I had planned to do a 5k tempo or something like that, I am feeling good this week, so it was a good idea to include my usual workouts, the intervals that I did on Wednesday and today a tempo run. I slept in today so I did not run in the morning. I ran in the evening when the heat was not so high, but it was still high, there was a nice breeze though, so the heat did not bother me so much. I headed out at 7 p.m. to the Blasco park, and the plan was to do 2 + laps (6:00 and 5:28) easy including 5 x 50m strides or so to warm up,completed 14 mins, then stopped, did some walking and drills and I had planned to do a 25 mins tempo run, I was expecting to run the 5k around 24:00-24:15 today since I have not been doing any workouts lately and the mileage is pretty slow, I thought that that pace would be enough. I would 25 mins worth of tempo running no matter the pace, I started out at a pace that was challenging, but that I could sustain for the 25 mins and beyond that, since I evaluated myself and put an effort that I would maintain for the 10k. The workout turned out great, I felt great throughout and it was a great tempo, much better than the last 28:37 that I did in the 6k, felt much better and was 1 mins, if I would have finished the 6k. First lap of tempo in the Blasco park was (900m) in 4:10 and feeling under control, then tried to keep the same effort pace without losing form, 2nd lap was 8:21 (4:11), at that point I knew that I could sustain that pace and I was not slowing down, 3rd lap came in 4:09 (12:30), at that point I said, in the 25 mins I have to do 6 laps, 4th lap came in 16:37 (4:07), I was getting tired there, but felt very strong and I knew for sure that I would maintain that pace till the end of the 25 mins, I was feeling relaxed and the pace was way faster than expected. 5th lap came in 20:47 (4:10 for that lap), then in the second half of last lap I put the hammer a bit without struggling and finished the last lap in 4:04 to complete 6 laps in 24:51, I kept running though to complete the 25 mins, so I did 5.4k in 24:51, which is 4:36 per km pace and the 5k in 23:00. I could have not asked for better workout. Last tempo I felt flat from the get go, today I felt fresh and fresh, that is due to the low mileage as well and myself adapting better to the stresses workout, that tempo was slow, but put my mind into it and salvaged what could have turned into a disaster. After the 25 mins today I walked for a couple of mins before starting the cool down. Then did 2 laps easy to cool down in 5:38 and 5:30, man those felt very easy and was surprised because those were fast given how slowly I was moving, then decided to complete the 14 mins of running such as the warm up and called it a day. Total was around 9.6k or 6 miles. Felt very satisfied and happy with this workout, today`s workout indicates that I have not lost any fitness. Today I felt like in the 10k race where I surpassed my own expectations.