Wahoo! Erm. Anyway. I did my first post-injury interval set today. Even though it was friggin’ beautiful outside (80s, low humidity, sunny but not baking) I ended up on the office treadmill again. Oh, well. This had the advantage of making my times incredibly consistent - its a pretty easy way to do speedwork actually.

My official pace chart says that - for the runner I hope to be come M-day - I should be doing 400m intervals at a 6:40 pace (9mph, or a 1:39 lap time). I wasn’t sure that I could do that, between the recovery and my healing tendonitis, but I figured I’d at least give it a shot.

I did eight of ‘em with no trouble whatsoever. Actually that’s not quite true. I did a half mile warmup at 9:00, then seven 400m intervals at 6:40 (with a 90 second recovery between each one), then a final 400m interval at 6:00 (that’s a 1:29 lap time!). That last one was challenging, but I never felt like I wasn’t going to make it. I finished up with another mile at 9:00, and called it a day.

Those were really fun. After the first couple, I was consistently doing about 40 seconds at 4/4 breathing, then another 40 at 3/3, finishing up with 20 seconds at 2/2. I probably could have kept it at 3/3 throughout (I did on the first two), but it would have been a needless struggle, so I didn’t. Only on the last one - the 6:00 pace - did my breathing get fast. On that one, by the end of it I was breathing in and out about once per second - it wasn’t out of control, but it was certainly challenging.

I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s long run now…

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