Saturday 6/6/15 - 6 x 1200m

Not an encouraging workout today. I was back in Rochester, so I headed over the Spaulding High School track in the morning. After a 3 mi warm up through the Pines and the surrounding neighborhood at 6:40 pace, I put on my Nike Flyknit Lunar 1+ and got right on the track. My plan was to run a similar workout to the 4 x 1600m 10K workout that I ran last week. However, today's goal was 6 x 1200m at 5:05 pace with 600m rest at 6:00 pace. Since last weeks workout had gone so well in the rain, I thought today would be just as easy with the weather actually cooperating. Unfortunately, things didn't pan out that way. Splits below. I switched the final 600m rest with a 400m rest so that the workout would be exactly 10K.

1200,600,1200,600,1200,600,1200,600,1200,400,1200

1200s: 3:47, 3:51, 3:57, 4:05, 4:09, 4:08
600s: 2:09, 2:18, 2:26, 2:28
400: 1:39
Total for 10K: 34:57

The workout started off well enough as I was able to hit the splits for the first 1200 and rest. The effort felt a bit fast, but I didn't foresee any problems. By the second 1200, I knew that I would need to slow the pace. I had increased the pace from last week's workout (5:10 to 5:05), and during that second 1200, it became clear that I wouldn't be able to hold it. Not a major issue. I backed off to 5:10 which felt hard but not overly so. By the third 1200, I felt like the whole workout had gone out the window. After that, I struggled with the idea of just finishing, and my pace during the rest of the workout dropped dramatically.

I just didn't have it today. My legs felt sluggish and refused to hold the speed. I suppose that is the difference between coming off a day with no running, like I did last week, and coming off an 11+ miler only 12 hours before. I'm really trying to move on from this workout and not think about it, but it did shake my confidence a bit. If you had asked me after last week's workout, I would have said 32 flat wasn't out of the question for the Market Square Day 10K next weekend. After today's workout, I fear that breaking 33:00 could be difficult.

Finished up with a 3 mile cool down at ancient marathoner pace for 12.2 miles on the day.