Wednesday, October 1, 2008 [9M]

10x400m. 67, 69, 65, 66, 65, 64, 64, 63, 65, 64. Since this is a recovery week I wanted a fairly easy workout and opted for some quarters with 200m rest between each interval. The rest periods were around 1:40, which allowed me to get the legs moving fast but still be completely recovered before each interval. It was a long day at work, I didn't leave the office until 8:30 and it was almost 9 by the time I was out the door. I ran over to Carlmont high school and didn't take much time stretching and running strides before getting the workout under way. I wasn't sure what I should be shooting for and was thinking at first something between 66-68 would be good enough to get some good turnover without having to force things too much. On the first one I came through in 32 but eased up too much in the second 200. I got out slow on the second one, coming through in 34, and not doing much to pick up the pace on the second half. I felt like I wasn't running smoothly at all and thought that I would have to work harder than I wanted to hit 68s. I stopped looking at 200 splits for the rest of the workout and was somewhat surprised when I saw a 65 for the 3rd interval as I was expecting something along the lines of the second one. I guess it has become the norm lately to need a couple of intervals before finding my rhythm. From then on everything went very smoothly and I was able to run faster than I was expecting. I was getting out somewhat aggressively and didn't have much trouble maintaining a quick turnover throughout the interval. I was taking a good bit of rest so this wasn't a very challenging workout but it was good to see that I still have some speed in my legs despite not doing any speedwork for some time.  

Tuesday PM, September 23, 2008 [11M]

5x1600. 4:57, 4:52, 4:50, 4:52, 4:44

I left work at 5PM and drove over to Sequoia high school for some good old-fashioned mile repeats. The weather was in the 90s earlier in the day but by the time I finished my warm-up it didn't feel like it was that hot. My legs were feeling decent on the warm-up and strides so I was confident this would turn out to be a good workout. Perhaps I had unreasonably low expectations and thought I'd be satisfied with running some 5:00 miles. I started out a bit slow on the first interval and came through the first lap in 76. That lap didn't feel so smooth and seeing how it was slow I was worried a bit that I would have to work hard to run 5:00 pace. Turns out one lap was all my legs needed to loosen up and I was able to pick up the pace and feel more comfortable. I was 2:30-3:43 at the end of the next two laps and held on to that pace until the end of the interval. I took a 400m jog between intervals and did a good job at keeping the rest relatively short. I was getting right into a jog at the end of my intervals and took between 3:05-3:20 to cover my rest lap. I made a slight effort to get out faster in the second interval and came through in 73, somewhat surprised since it felt really comfortable. I ran even 73s the rest of the way and felt in control the whole time. On the 3rd interval I ran 72s for the first two laps and 73s for the last two. I got out in 71 on the 4th but slowed down too much on the 2nd lap and came through the 800 in 2:25. I worked the 3rd lap some more to come through in 3:48 and ended up with a low 4:52. I felt almost completely recovered as I was getting ready to start my last interval and figured I could push the pace some more. I got out in 70-2:21-3:33 and closed decently with another 71. I felt like I could have blown away that last lap but reminded myself that this was just a workout and kept it under control. I put in about 4 miles around Redwood City for my cool-down and called it a day with some strides on the infield. I was very happy with how things turned out today, I haven't looked back at past workouts but I'm pretty sure this must be my best mile repeat workout ever. It was one of those workouts you dream of having, when you step on the track with some goal pace in mind and are able to destroy that window and feel very comfortable doing it. You can definitely argue that I should have had a more aggressive goal but

seeing how much I've struggled running hard workouts on my own over the last year and with my legs tired from all the mileage, it's hard to blame myself for not hammering a workout from the gun. The times by themselves might not be that impressive but the way the workout progressed was  the big confidence booster. I wasn't really working hard until the last interval and even in that there was a lot more left in the tank. I was able to get the legs moving fast and felt like I was smoothly flowing around the track. One of those rare days when everything is clicking, hopefully there's more like this to come. 

Saturday, September 20, 2008 [12M]

2x5000m - 17:11, 17:16

I was up around 10:30 this morning, had some breakfast and waited a couple of hours to be fully awake before heading over to Carlmont high school for a track workout. I'm starting to run some marathon specific workouts, which will include some longer intervals on marathon pace (I'm assuming about 5:40 pace for MP right now). I should be able to run more than a couple of 5Ks at that pace but I'm not yet used to running such long intervals on the track so I thought I could use a transition period. I started out a bit faster than planned on the first one, coming through the first lap in 80. I slowed down but not by much and I was comfortably running close to 5:30 pace the whole way. I split 5:28 for the first mile, was at 10:59 for mile 2 and 16:30 at mile 3. (Note that these were full mile splits and not 1600s, since the track is short and I'm running in lane 3, which is a couple of meters over 400m. I guess the 5Ks were about 30m long so they would have been 5-6 seconds faster, not that it makes much of a difference but I'm noting it down mostly for personal reference.) I was feeling fairly comfortable running 5:30 pace and decided to shoot for the same in the 2nd 5K. I took about 4 minutes of rest between the two intervals and continued pretty much where I had left off. I was slightly slower for the first mile, coming through in 5:32 then slacked off a bit on the second mile and came through in 11:08. My legs were feeling a bit tired but I mostly lost focus and  slowed down. I picked up the pace on the 3rd mile and split a 5:28 to come through in 16:36. The 2nd interval took some more effort than the first but I wasn't killing myself out there. I was running on some tired legs by the end, a combination I think of putting in 10K on the track and rounding up a week just shy off a 100 miles. I was tempted to add a couple of more miles for cool down but I was running fairly slow on the way back and I thought that I wouldn't get much out of a couple junk miles.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008 [15M]

8x2:30 fartlek. I ran over from work to San Carlos this afternoon and made it at Road Runner as Doug was heading out. I ran with him for less than a couple of miles, until we made it to the bay trail, and started my fartlek on the trail. My hard efforts were 2:30 long and I like I was moving fast although I didn't have any mile splits to get a more accurate sense of pace. I went by feel on the rest, starting each interval whenever I felt recovered. Perhaps I wasn't pushing the hard efforts as much as I should since I was recovering quickly and kept my rest somewhere between 1:00 - 1:15.  I ended up running 5.25 miles in just under 29 minutes so I averaged right around 5:30 pace, including the rest periods. It's hard to get a sense of how fast I was running on the hard efforts and even if I did, I wouldn't know how to translate times on a gravel trail to the equivalent on the road or track. I wasn't concerned about times today, though, all I wanted was to put in a good effort and I think I got what I wanted. Running over from work and having to run back afterwards also made sure I posted some solid mileage for the day. 

Friday PM, September 12, 2008 [11M]

3 x 2 Mile. 11:10 (5:35), 10:55 (5:30), 10:34 (5:17). I was a bit late coming back from work and didn't get started until 7:15PM. I ran over to Carlmond high school for my warm-up and didn't really spend much time stretching or running strides before getting into the workout. I wasn't planning to run anything fast today but just wanted to get my legs accustomed to running some long intervals at marathon pace or slightly faster. I was shooting to start at 5:40 pace for the first 2 miler and bring it down 10 seconds for each interval. I run fairly even for the first interval, running back to back 5:35s. The biggest challenge in that first interval was having to dodge around people who were wondering around the track. I'm not sure what exactly was going on, maybe a football game or practice had finished and there were a lot of people just hanging around, including lots of kids running and kicking balls on the track. Fortunately I didn't run into anyone and didn't have to swerve too far out of my lane when someone was blocking my way. The crowd progressively got smaller and by the second interval it wasn't a big deal. I took about 4 minutes of rest between intervals and started out with a 5:30 mile on my second interval, right on target. I was slightly faster on the second mile, splitting a 5:25. I was feeling comfortable the whole way and didn't have trouble bringing down the pace some more for the last interval. I got a bit too excited at the start and came through in 75-76 for the first lap and had to slow myself down a bit. I came through in 5:17 and ran 79s the rest of the way to finish up in 10:34. I felt like I could have blown away those last few laps but I reminded myself that it wasn't the point of the workout. Not a very challenging workout but I got what I wanted out of it. With my mileage climbing up in the 100s I need to get used to running workouts on tired legs and I think this was a good starting point. 

Tuesday, September 2, 2008 [12M]

Fartlek at Franklin park. I wanted to join the guys on their workout at Franklin Park this afternoon but I had a meeting to dial in to and didn't get out until 5:30PM. I drove over to Franklin Park afterwards and got there while everyone was finishing up their cool-down. I decided to run a fartlek on the 5 mile course and got started after a 2 mile warm-up. My hard efforts were 2:30 long and I kept the rest around 2:00. I started out somewhat aggressively on the first one, mostly because I was excited about running at Franklin Park again and started visualizing Saturday's race. I didn't stay aggressive the rest of the way though and I can't say that I was putting in my hardest efford. I haven't run a workout like this in a long time and I think I'm no longer used to running short and hard intervals. I could have pushed the rest some more but I wasn't focused enough to realize I had recovered. Ended up running the course in right around 28:00, which is nothing spectacular but I suppose not too bad considering how much effort I was putting in. I ran the course backwards for cool-down and called it day.  

Friday, May 23, 2008 [12M]

8M tempo at Sawyer Camp. 5:44, 5:43, 6:19, 6:50, 5:34, 5:32, 5:43, 5:39. I drove out to Sawyer camp after work and got things started by 6PM. My plan was to run a controlled, long tempo, shooting for 5:40s the whole way. The first couple of miles were just off pace but fairly controlled. I knew it would be hard to maintain the pace for the next couple of miles since most of that part would be uphill but I wanted at least to maintain the same effort. It's been a while since the last time I made it to the end of trail and I forgot how steep it gets, especially in the last mile. As shown by my splits I slowed down quite a bit and wasn't putting in the effort needed to do a decent climb. In retrospect, opting to go all the way to the end of the trail was a bad choice for this kind of workout. I wanted a controlled effort and the long uphill part threw me off. I didn't make an effort to pick up the pace after making the turn but I was expecting to be a bit faster since I'd be going downhill. It was steep enough, though, to force me to break my stride so I couldn't really get rolling. The decline in the 6th mile was a bit more gradual so I could get the legs moving better. I got back close to 5:40 pace for the last couple of miles, after hitting the flat parts. I could have pushed the pace more but that wasn't the point of this workout so I just kept things under control all the way to the finish.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 [10M]

2 sets of 8x400. 70, 69, 68, 67, 68, 66, 67, 67, 68, 67, 67, 67, 66, 65, 66, 63. Rest was 200m between intervals and 5:00 between sets. Since I was only running quarters I opted to run the workout at Carlmont high school. It was very windy today, which I figured would make the workout harder so I decided to wear my Hyperspeeds to even things out a bit. I must say I really liked the shoes, they feel light but they have enough support, unlike my Streak XCs, so you can even race up to the marathon in them. I even did my warm-up and cool-down in them, since I ran to the track from my place and didn't want to be carrying an extra pair of shoes. My goal for the workout was to run 68s and work on getting some good turnover at 3K pace. It took me a couple of intervals to get down to the right pace but after that I started rolling. The rest was more than enough and I felt recovered at the start of every interval. My rest periods were fairly quick, I was only taking about 1:30 for the 200m whereas I've had workouts in the past when I was taking about the same time to jog 100m. The wind on the backstretch was pretty bad so I had to work a bit but in general it didn't feel like I was working too hard. I was feeling good enough at the end to let the legs loose and finish off the workout with a 63. Definitely not a killer workout but a nice controlled effort. I had a good turnover and was feeling strong on all intervals. As a former miler, quarters were my bread and butter so I always feel like I can knock them out without any problems.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008 [12M]

5M decreasing pace. 5:51, 5:42, 5:28, 5:17, 5:01. Ordinarily I would have ran some intervals on the track today but since I'm running Bay to Breakers on Sunday and this will be the only workout of the week I opted for a decreasing pace 5-miler. I wanted to be a little more conservative today, start out at 6:00 as usual but only drop 15 seconds a mile. My last few workouts have been disappointing so I needed something to boost my confidence. I even ran the workout in my new Asics Hyperspeed 2 flats but that was mostly because I wanted to break in the shoes before Sunday's race. I drove out to Sequoia high school and started my warm-up around 6PM. The track was pretty crowded when I finished my warm-up so I took my time before starting the workout, stretching and running some strides. We had a rather sudden increase in temperature today, it was in the high 80s when I started the workout, about 20 degrees warmer than what it has been lately. I wet myself down before starting but that didn't really help things out much. I started out a bit faster than goal pace on the first mile, coming through in 1:25 and 2:52, even though it felt like I was jogging. I slowed down to the right pace for the last half and easily transitioned to the second mile. I ran even paced, comfortably hitting mid 85s. The third mile went by without much trouble, running remarkably even again and hitting 82s the whole way. I wanted to hit 78s for the 4th mile but wasn't as aggressive as I should have been and only managed 79s. I was hoping to dip under 5:00 for the last mile but I was only able to run 76s for the first 3 laps. I had something left, though, and managed to finish with a 71 for the last lap. I was pretty spent when I finished, partly because of the heat taking its toll. I jogged one lap on the infield then drank and poured some water over me and felt much better. I was feeling better than I expected on the cool-down and ended up going a bit longer than I was planning. Finished back at the track for some cool-down strides and stretching before heading back home to pour down the gatorade. I was pleased with how things turned out today, I was pretty much right on goal pace and running even pace on each mile. I was working hard at the end but I could have been a bit more aggressive in the last two miles, seeing how I was able to close fast at the end. I still need to work more on the mental aspect of my workouts but this was definitely a big improvement compared to my last few workouts. I ran fairly similar times to this workout (after adjusting for the shorter track), which I ran the week before my last half marathon, so if this means I'm in similar shape then I'll definitely take it.

Saturday, May 10, 2008 [10M]

5M decreasing pace at Sawyer Camp. 6:01, 5:41, 5:31, 5:39, 6:00. I was at Sawyer Camp around 1PM, started with a 2 mile warm-up and got right into the workout. The goal was once again to start at 6:00 and bring it down 20 seconds each mile but obviously I was no where near my goal. I pretty much nail the first half of the workout, which of course is the least important part. I was 3:01/3:00 for the first mile, 2:50/2:51 for the second was pretty much right on pace on the third, coming through the half in 2:41. Things went downhill from then on. I probably lost 2-3 seconds making the turn back at 2.5 miles, so the second half of the 3rd mile was probably 2:47-48. I was working a lot harder than I was expecting at that point, my legs feeling heavy but also working hard aerobically. I only managed to come through the half in 2:43 for the 4th mile and pretty much gave up on the workout after that. The last mile was fairly meaningless, I was just going through the motions and not putting any effort into it. Obviously a disappointing workout, making it two bad workouts in a row.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008 [12M]

2x1600, 4x800, 4x400. 5:04, 5:08, 2:22, 2:29, 2:25, 2:27, 68, 66, 66, 65. I drove out to Redwood city this afternoon and tried out the track at Sequoia high school for this workout. Carlmont high school is a lot more convenient but I I'd rather do workouts on a 400m track. I didn't get there until 6:30 PM so I didn't take much time to get the workout underway after the usual 2 mile warm-up. I was originally planning to run 5x1600 but I after the first two intervals I decided to switch to some shorter stuff. I got out slow on the first 1600, coming through the 400 in 77 and the 800 in 2:33. Picked things up a bit after that and ran mid 75s for the the last two laps. I got out faster on the second 1600, running 75s for the first 2 laps but slowing down to 79s for the last 2. I was really out of it mentally so after the second interval I figured that it wasn't worth trying to run any more 1600s. I wasn't very focused on the 800s either, I was slowing down too much on the second lap and my times were all over the place. I got out aggressively on the first one, came through in 69 and finished in a decent 2:22. I was out in 73 for the second one and didn't put much effort on the 2nd lap, slowing down to a 76. I was out in 71 on the 3rd but only managed a 2:25 then I was only able to get out in 73 for the last one but at least didn't slow down too much on the second lap. I managed to run some decent 400s and salvaged the workout a bit. I was getting out fairly aggressively, coming through 200 in 33 for the first one and 32 for the other three, and held it together to the line. I ran about 4 miles for cool-down but my legs were spent and I pretty much put in some junk miles.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008 [9M]

Attempted an AT run and went 3 miles at 5:20, 5:23, 5:33. I woke up yesterday with a sore throat and a bit of headache/fever and I had been feeling a bit sick since. I went to work in the morning but decided to go back home after an hour. I ended up spending the rest of the day in bed with my laptop, trying to get some work done but being remarkably unproductive. I started feeling better as the day progressed and by 5:30PM I decided to get out for my run. I had been planning to do an AT run and after debating about it for a while I opted to give it a shot. I kind of knew that I would have a hard time running anything decent but I reasoned that an AT run would be a good option since I would run for as long as I could maintain the goal pace. Of course the flaw in that reasoning was that I was giving myself an easy way out of the workout and not really commiting myself to putting in a hard effort. I also had a fairly loose goal pace, shooting to start at something close to 5:10 but being content with running somewhat slower. I ran over to Carlmont high school and ran a couple of strides before starting the workout. I got out way too slow and was 82-83 for the first lap. At that point I decided that shooting for 5:20s would more reasonable and picked the pace enough to hit the goal for the first mile. Even though the pace was slow I wasn't feeling very comfortable and had some trouble breathing. After the first mile I started thinking of calling it a day at the end of mile 2 but I was more or less able to hold on to the pace so I figured I should try to add on another mile. For the 3rd mile I only managed to come through the half in 2:50 and settled at that point with finishing after 3. I was able to pick it up for the last couple of laps and ran the last half in a more decent 2:43. I was thinking originally of adding on a longer cool-down but after the workout I knew that any mileage I would add would be slow and painful and really not worth the effort. It was definitely a good call since for the last mile or so I was just dragging myself to finish the run. I probably should have avoided the workout all together today but I guess I've always been too stuborn to do something like that.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008 [10M]

5M decreasing pace @ Sawyer Camp. 6:05, 5:45, 5:33, 5:17, 5:08. I left work at 5:45PM and drove out to Sawyer Camp for another 5-miler. It took me about half an hour to get there because of the traffic but didn't waste much time starting my warm-up once I was there. I got into the workout right away at the 2 mile mark, shooting to hit 6:00 for the first mile. The plan was to drop 20 seconds per mile but I thought of that more like a general guideline for the workout since I was more concerned with the effort rather than times. I came through the first half in 3:02 and more or less maintained the pace for the rest of the first mile. I picked it up to a 2:51 to start the second mile but was a bit slower for the next half, still more or less on pace. The transition to 5:45 wasn't as smooth as I would have liked and got me worried a bit that I'd have a hard time getting down to faster times. The 3rd mile is always slower since it's a bit hilly so I wasn't too surprised to see 2:48 at the half, even though I was putting in more effort. I was already working relatively hard on the 3rd mile so picking up the pace for the 4th mile wasn't easy. I managed to get out in 2:35 for the first half but kind of lost focus and didn't stay aggressive enough to hold on to that pace for the other half. I had to dig in to bring the pace down some more for the 5th mile and did a decent job, getting out in 2:34 and holding on to that pace until the end. My legs were pretty spent at the end of the 5th mile but after jogging for a mile I was feeling somewhat recovered. I added another 2 miles for cool-down and finished with some strides and stretching. Pretty good workout, even though it wasn't spectacularly fast it was a solid effort. My main focus right now is to get back to the right mindset so I can push myself in workouts and I'm sure that everything else will follow naturally.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008 [10M]

Anaerobic Threshold run. I decided to give one of Coach Taylor's new workouts a try since it seemed to fit what I'm doing right now. The goal of the workout is to run 40 seconds slower than mile PR for as long as you can but for my first one I wanted to be somewhat more conservative and was shooting to run 5:10-5:20 pace. I was back home from work and on my way to Carlmont High School by 7PM. I got pretty much right into it, starting out with a 78 for the first lap and continuing with 80s and 81s. It was windy again so I was content with running 5:20s. I didn't manage to hold on to that pace for too long, though, and after coming through the half in 2:45 with my legs feeling like trash I decided to stop after the second mile, which I finished in 5:31. I jogged a couple of laps and decided to add on 4 quarters to the workout. I know it doesn't make that much sense as a workout but I felt that 2 miles on the track would hardly qualify as a workout and wanted to put in something more. My legs were pretty tired and I wasn't putting that much effort into the quarters, just getting out reasonably fast and maintaining the pace. I ran 68, 70, 69 and 72, which is far from spectacular but not a complete loss cause given the circumstances. I jogged a few more laps on the infield afterwards and took the long route home to add on some slow mileage. After running another horrible workout I'm starting to wonder I would have been better off sticking to base mileage for another week or two before starting any hard efforts. It feels a bit strange, though, that I can comfortably clip 6:20s on long runs but I can't run a minute faster for more than two miles. It's actually sad if you consider that a couple of months ago I averaged 5:25s for a half marathon. I was planning to run another workout this week but I think I'll wait to see how I feel by the end of the week and play things by ear.

Friday, April 4, 2008 [10M]

4M decreasing pace. 5:51, 5:47, 5:38, 5:38.

I came back home work this afternoon and headed out to Carlmont High School around 6PM. The track is right around 2 miles away from my place, which is perfect for the pre-workout warm-up. Once I got to the track and started getting ready for my workout I realized to my surprise that the track is only about 390m per lap. I only ran here once before and it was at night so I didn't realize that the track is short. I would estimate that the 5M tempo I ran was about 7-9 seconds slower than I thought per mile, which makes it far less impressive but still not a bad workout I guess. The plan today was to run another decreasing pace 5-miler, starting at 6:00 and dropping 15 seconds per mile. As a sidenote I'll mention that I asked the MIT guys last week why they call this workout the "Kenyan" but I didn't get any compelling arguments so I'll stick to my less creative but accurate name. To make up for the short track I ran the workout in lane 3, which was 402-403m per lap, so a second or two slower per 1600. I got out a bit too fast on the first one, coming through the first lap in 85. I slowed down a bit for the rest of the mile but I was still 1-2 seconds faster than goal pace on each lap. I didn't have to pick it up too much for the second mile and was almost right on. Going into the 3rd mile things started looking bad. Aerobically I wasn't working hard at all but my legs were feeling heavy. I didn't put the effort needed to increase the pace, expecting the transition to 5:30 pace to be easy. I was 3-4 seconds slow on the first lap, brought it down a bit for the next couple of laps but still slower than goal pace. By the end of the 3rd mile my legs were dead and couldn't move any faster. Coming through the half for the 4th mile in 2:50 I decided that adding a 5th mile wasn't worth it. I added a couple of laps around the track and ran a pretty slow cool-down to get back home. This definitely wasn't the workout I was expecting, I thought I would at least be able to get down to 5:15 somewhat easily but I couldn't even break 5:30. I want look into this too much, though, the first workout after coming back from an injury is always tough. Mentally I wasn't into it at all and even though I think I have the aerobic fitness, my legs still need some more miles before I can start running fast again.

5M decreasing pace @ Carlmont High School - 13 Miles

6:08, 5:39, 5:17, 5:02, 4:47. *See note below

Thanks to CWong I found out that there's a track at Carlmont High School, just 2 miles away from my place. I drove out there after work for another shot at the decreasing pace 5 miler. I could have run over there for my warm-up but I wanted to check out the track first and make sure I could run my workout there. The track looked a bit unusual, it only had 6 lanes and had really long straights, sort of like an outdoor version of the MIT paper clip indoor track. I got into the workout right away after the usual 2 mile warm-up. My legs were feeling a bit heavy on the warm-up and I was a bit worried that the workout would end up being similar to last week's. At least the weather was pretty much perfect, no rain or wind like the last few days, and temperatures in the cool high 40s. I tried not to get out too fast on the first mile and ended up a bit on the slow side. I was almost right on for the second one and this time I didn't have trouble picking it up for the 3rd mile. I hit the first lap in 78 and at that point I knew this was going to be a good workout. The 3rd mile felt really smooth and almost effortless and again I had no trouble switching gears for the 4th mile. I came through the half in 2:31 and kept an even pace for the whole mile. I managed to pick things up even more for the last mile and ran 73s for the first 3 laps. I had an extra gear in the last lap and I was moving on the backstretch but I reminded myself that this wasn't a race so I kept things under control. I still managed to bring it in with a 68 last lap, finishing a very solid workout. I was feeling great after the workout and didn't mind going for a 6 mile cool-down to get some extra mileage in. I was really excited about how things turned out today and got a huge confidence booster. I've been doubting my fitness lately so it's good to see that the mileage is paying off. My last 5K was probably only a few seconds off my time at Alumni and this was at the end of a 5 mile workout, in trainers and running all by myself. Rolling week has climbed up to 97, all in singles.

* After visiting the track again I realized that it's not actually 400m long but about 390m. I did some calculations to figure out what my actual mile splits would be. I'm more interested in how I finished the workout so I'm extrapolating backwards. The workout comes out to be 200m shorter than 5M so I'm breaking it down as follows:
First 1400m at 6:17 pace
Next 4 miles: 5:50, 5:26, 5:10, 4:54.

5M decreasing pace @ College of San Mateo - 10 Miles

6:01, 5:40, 5:26, 5:15, 5:11.
I left work at 6PM and drove out to College of San Mateo. I did some searching with google maps to find another track in the area besides Stanford and noticed one at CSM. It was annoying to have to go around the barriers at Stanford, plus it always seems to be crowded. I had no idea what to expect at CSM, I didn't even know if I'd be able to run there, but it turned out to be a nice track. There were nothing blocking the lanes and I was there all by myself. There weren't any lights on the track but it was decently illuminated from lights around the campus. The campus is up a hill and one side of the track is overlooking the area around San Mateo bridge, which was arguably the best view I've ever seen from a track. There was some traffic on the way there and I had to drive around campus for a while to find the track so by the time I started my warm-up it was getting close to 7. It was a bit chilly by that time, low 40s and raining lightly, but not too bad weather for a workout. I ran a couple of miles around campus, stopped for a short bathroom break at the end and started the workout right away. The plan was to start at 6:00 and bring it down 20 seconds each mile. I was right on for the first two miles but I wasn't able to transition to 5:20 very smoothly. I wasn't breathing hard at the end of the 3rd mile but my legs were feeling tired and heavy. I started working hard on the last two miles but I couldn't get the legs moving very fast and was way off my goal pace. I wasn't really expecting to get down to 4:40 by the end but I wanted to get close to 5:00 for the 4th mile and try to go sub 5 for the last one. It was a bit disappointing that I wasn't nearly as fast as I wanted but at least the effort was good. I guess it's not surprising that my legs were so tired with all the hilly runs I've done lately, plus I'm still trying to adjust to handling workouts while keeping the mileage high.