6 x mile

Today was my first 10K-specific workout of my 8-week training block and it called for 6 x mile @ 10K goal pace with 3:00 recoveries. Being that it was already in the mid-80s and super humid when I got to Lakewood Park around 9:15, I chose to go by effort rather than forcing my goal pace. I ended up averaging 5:55.5 for my set, which was actually not too far off my sub 36 target pace (a 35:58 10K is 5:47 pace). Heat index calculators estimate that a 6:00 mile is more like a 6:15 when it's in the mid 80s and that doesn't even consider humidity so I'm feeling very optimistic. Glad I did this workout on the marked mile loop at Lakewood Park, where I could catch some slight cooling breezes off the lake, rather than slugging it out on the track. Splits were 6:04, 5:54, 5:53, 5:55, 5:55, 5:52. In retrospect I probably should have held back a bit more on the second rep like I did on the first, but I'm happy with the fairly even pacing. Felt like death on the fifth one, and, for a brief second, thought about making it a 5 x mile workout, but then I got mad at myself for thinking that and dialed M for Man-up and hammered the last one nicely. No matter how you pace them the last mile of a 10K almost always sucks so you just have to callous yourself to the pain. I'm leaning towards doing an 8 mile progression run on Friday for my second key workout of the week. There's something about that workout that simulates the end of a long race better than anything else.