Strong tempo

Had a strong workout at Lakewood Park today. After a three mile warm up, I ran a 3 mile tempo in 18:16 (6:05 pace), staying comfortably at 85-90% of my maximum heart rate reserve for the last 2.5 miles (it took about a half mile to build up to 85% which is pretty standard for this type of session). A week and a half ago I ran 18:36 for this same workout, so this was a significant improvement, especially since my average HR for both workouts was identical. My splits were actually slightly positive today, hitting 6:03, 6:05, and 6:08. That said, the effort in the last half almost felt too easy, but the point of this workout is to stay in the heart rate zone and not go over 90% even if this means slowing down a tad, unlike in a race where you redline, especially in the second half. I could have easily run the last mile ten seconds faster, but that isn't the point. Very happy with where I'm at now as January winds down and getting antsy to race again.