Speed Work

So my first planned early morning run on Wednesday turns out to also be my first "speed" workout instead of a simple "run 1 hour" workout that I usually have. It looks kind of fun and challenging but at the same time, it'll be hard to judge how long it will take because I need to do my warm up and then run 10km. It usually takes me 70 mins to run 10k so that could mean I need to plan for 1:20 but since I'm supposed to be running some of it at my 5k time, I assume it'll be closer to an 60 mins plus warm up.

Anyway, here's the workout.

Surges. Warm up. On a 10k course run 2 minutes (recover for 1 minute), 1 minute (recover 30 seconds), 30 seconds (recover 30 seconds) at ~5k pace. Repeat for entire course. Cool down. Record 10k time.

So the first challenge is timing. I need to give myself at least 1:15 to complete this, just in case. That means getting up even earlier than I had first planned, or at least being out the door by 5:30 am at the latest.

The second challenge is that I have to do this long-ish, speed-work run on the road instead of the greenway trail because I don't want to drive down and run on the trail at that time of day. It would add another 20 mins or so to my workout and I would be too isolated.

So that means I have to run at home. My two choices are to run laps around the block - that's about 12 laps. Or I can run the 3km loop about 4 times. The 3km loop has two hills on it so that's probably not best for this run. 12 laps around the block it is. Hopefully everyone in the neighbourhood will be asleep and not wondering what the heck I'm doing....

Of course, the million dollar question is how I'm going to feel after a run like that? Will my legs hurt? Very much?

I am now realizing that this will not be a very good experiment to see if morning runs are any easier on my legs because I am changing two variables - time and speed.

Ah well, it can't hurt to run in the morning so if I'm sore after the run, it'll be because of the speed.

Final challenge - WTF is my current 5km pace now?????

I have no clue. My 5k pace in the past has been 5:15 - 5:45 per km (8:26-9:15 mile) depending on how much my legs were hurting. I will just try to run faster and see how it goes.

So tomorrow is physio and Wednesday morning is the run. I hope.