Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!

New Year's day (Thursday) was spent with the boys at the ski slope. We got home that evening and I had time for a bike workout, which was about 12 hours later than my "preferred" time to workout (especially considering that I was doing this right before bed... and then planning to get up early to run hard, so that was NO recovery except for laying in bed).

I cranked out an hour and 40 minute workout with 4x10 minute efforts in the middle:

Early the next morning (Friday), I hit the treadmill for a 5K. I had done the same workout 3 weeks earlier, and my plan was to try to do the same workout, only have the treadmill 0.1 mph faster throughout. I mentioned doing that in my post last month, noting that should take me from 17:15 to about 17:05. So after a bit of a warm-up, I ran my 3.1 miles like this: 10.7 mph for 0.5, 10.8 mph for 0.5, 10.9 mph from mile 1 through 2.3, 11.0 for 0.4, 11.1 for about 0.25 before knocking it up to 11.2 for about final 0.15. I didn't think I'd last after about 0.75 miles, but then sped up more near the end than I did a few weeks back!

My half-mile splits were:

2:48, 2:46, 2:45, 2:44, 2:45, 2:41, 0:31 = 17:04.2

That's the fastest I've ever done that workout, and technically 1 second faster than my 5K PR! (But it's easier to do on a treadmill, I know! This is not a *real* PR!) I think my treadmill 5K PR was about 3 years ago in 17:07 where I started slower, but sped up a bit sooner.

Neither of these were reading correctly. I bet the pace at the start and finish
of the 5K effort was about right, but that's NOT right in the middle.

Sweaty treadmill, watching "Tomorrow War" on Prime. Red arrows
showing the start and finish of the 5K from mile 1.5 through 4.6.

The final "peak" at the end of the 5K effort was when I was at 11.1 or 11.2 mph.

Then the day after that (Saturday) I hit the trainer for another decent workout. I knew I wanted to go a big longer, but I didn't know how much effort I wanted to put in (although I'm making it a point to get in more QUALITY bike workouts this year). I found myself thinking that I should do a 30 or 40 minute tempo effort, and I ended up holding on for 40 minutes. Every 10 minutes I did a different thing: 10 mins just "hard," 10 mins standing, 10 mins starting in an easier gear and shifting to a harder gear every 2 mins, and then the final 10 mins alternating standing and seated every 2 mins.

40 min effort, and then "moderate" for the next 25 mins or so.
An hour and 50 mins total.

You can see the final 10 mins of that 40 min effort got my heart rate a bit higher, and that happened for 2 reasons. First, I think the alternating standing and seated was harder for me. And second, I WAS pushing a bit harder because I knew the end was near.

This capped off a decent week! I might see if I can beat that treadmill 5K again in 4-6 weeks... maybe I can hit sub-17!