This morning was pretty nice. Sunny and about 70 degrees. So, I fought off the demons that said, "You're tired, don't do this workout!" Put on my spiffy black Gazelles shirt and shorts, sort of a Gary Player look, and headed out for the Gilbert fartlek workout. This is the last hard run before the IBM 10K on Sunday. Scheduled workout is to go out at easy long run pace, and accelerate for varying amounts of time to a pace 20-30 seconds faster than that pace, approaching marathon race pace in the pickups. Between pickups, there are varying lengths of recovery jogging. The idea is to build mental and physical abilities to deal with tough spots in your race(s).

I cut the prescribed warmup and cooldown periods a little short, since I'm still not quite at the upper levels of Gazelle-dom. So, I did 10:00 warmup, then 10:00 acceleration, 2:00 recov., 3 x 5:00 acceleration, 1:00 rest each, 5 x 2:00 acceleration, 0:30 seconds rest each, and 6 x 1:00 acceleration, 0:15 seconds rest each, followed by 10:00 cooldown.

I think I got a little aggressive on the accelerations 2:00 and shorter, but anyway, the overall pace for my 7.86 miles was 8:53, which was the pace I used at the last marathon tempo run. I'm pretty sure I went too hard today, but except for some inclines, I felt pretty good.

The rest of the week sets up easier, so I'll have plenty of time to get ready for IBM 10K.

Yet another good day at the running office.