September 22,  Thursday

After a day of rest I decided to try for a few interval 1600m.   A long day of rain led me to conclude that the safest place to run would be the Jackson High School track.  The sun was breaking through the clouds as I did my warm-up. The somewhat ambitious goal was to try for three, maybe starting at  9:00 and getting down to the low 8:00 range.   I spiked up and headed to the starting line wondering how my legs would feel today.  I was looking for 400m at 2:15 on pace for my 9:00 goal.  The first 200m came up at :50 and the 400m was 1:45 while feeling quite comfortable.   That got me a little excited, so I pushed on at same effort level.  The 8:00 read 3:34 still feeling no distress.  Then I decided to go for it and rev it up on the next 400m.  At 1200m my watch read 5:31 and I knew it was going to be fast.  The final 400m was a serious push, and I finished 1600m in 7:33!  (3:34 and 3:59). I was quite shocked and completely satisfied that that was enough for today. I did follow it up with a 400m in 2:00  before I took off my spikes.  The workout ended with an 800m jog.    The relative ease with which I completed this 1600m effort has raised  my confidence in my current fitness level.  We will learn if this translates to a quality 5K race nine days from today.

STATS are good.