Slowing Down

So i'm signed up for a 5k race next Saturday. I thought it might be a good idea to head to the track yesterday and practice 5k pace. My last few marathon training cycles, I've done VO2Max intervals at what I'm guessing was my 5k pace of 6:20 which would put me in a 19:40 or so finish. Considering the cut back in mileage as of late, I don't think that's doable. Even during peak marathon training, I was never quite sure that I could stretch those 1 mile intervals at that pace to 3.1 miles. Instead, I decided to aim for 4 minute km pace (6:26 pace) which would put me in a 20:00 finish.

Did a 3 miles jog warmup to the track. Got there and there was no-one around. Had the track all to myself. Tried to do 5x1km at 4:00/km pace. First one I did in 3:55 (6:18 pace) which was a bit fast. Did a short recovery jog of 200m and then put down a 4:02 (6:30 pace) split for the second one, but I was feeling pretty pooped after that one. Ended up doing walking recoveries after that of about 2:45. Remaining splits were 4:08 (6:39 pace), 4:06 (6:36) and 4:09 (6:41). HR maxed out at 190 during the second one, but topped out at 188 or 189 for the other ones. That interval session really sucked. Did slow job back home. Total for the day was 9 miles or so.

Today, I headed down to the lakefront to get a long run in. I haven't been down there for a long run since last summer so it's been a while. While driving down there, I saw them setting up a bunch of traffic cones on the road. It looked like they were setting up for a race, but i'm usually pretty in sync with the races that are going on in the area, but I hadn't heard of this one. I looked it up later and it was a Father's day 5k race. Anyhow, back to the run. Did about 15.3 miles today and averaged about 8:40 pace for the whole thing. This was my longest run since the marathon more than a month ago and it showed. The first half was alright, but I was starting to fade towards the end. Was a bit warm at the end. I should probably try and start my runs earlier to try and beat the heat.

So total for the week was around 39 miles. Will try and do a LT run on Tuesday and maybe a short Vo2Max workout on Wednesday/Thursday to prepare for next Saturday's race. May have to re-evaluate my goal of sub 20 depending on how the runs go this week.