Mile Repeats! (First Intervals in 10 Months)

I've sort of put myself on an every-other-week "hard run" schedule. So I did my first 3 hard runs in May since being injured last year. First was a 3x3:00 farlek run, and then was a 4x3:00 fartlek run. But on Friday, I did *actual* intervals!

On my run 2 days before, I took a mini detour on the way back home to check on the St. Thomas track:

The track is always open on the "campus side," but there were signs up warning of trespassing charges if anyone was caught on it. (COVID-19 related reasons, I believe.) So that was out. So I planned to do a loop through my neighborhood that equaled a mile. I like to do intervals based on "I need to get to this POINT IN SPACE" instead of "I need to get my Garmin to read ONE MILE" because I'm mentally better knowing I need to get to a finish line than just running until my watch beeps (wherever that may be). But I sucked it up and went with my Garmin. I looped through my neighborhood on a short warm-up, and then I ran "square" intervals with a bit more added to equal 1 mile.

Here's what it looked like after my 3x1 mile (with 3:00 walking rest) workout:

Blue lines added to show intervals: running counter-clockwise from Cleveland
and Roblyn, and having to run an extra block to the north past the starting point.

I didn't know what to expect for times. Truly. My first 3x3:00 farleks averaged around 6:00/mile pace for those 3 efforts, and my second 4x3:00 fartleks had 3 out of 4 that were sub-6:00 pace. Could I keep 3 miles under 6:00?

I was happy to see my first half mile tick over in 2:56, and I knew my second half mile would be slower (there's a downhill section at the end of the first half mile, and an uphill section right in the middle of the second half mile). But my first interval clocked in at 5:55, so I was happy. I didn't know if I could hold that.

Here are my 3 intervals times:

2:56.49 + 2:59.45 = 5:55.94
2:57.86 + 2:58.08 = 5:55.94
2:58.55 + 3:01.77 = 6:00.32

Jeez, I had no idea my first 2 intervals were EXACTLY the same until afterwards. And I'm usually a runner who likes to (and usually can) descend splits, so the final interval shows I was appropriately hashed. (Meaning it's 5 seconds slower, and not like 25 seconds slower.) I'm a LITTLE bummed I couldn't keep it just under 6:00, but that interval did it's job: I suffered.

Pace chart. Notice the final corner 2/3 into each interval becomes more pronounced
as I went on. I could tell that "slowing" and "accelerating" from turns was getting harder!

I (stupidly) looked back to my last track workout, and that was August 1st. I did a pyramid workout (400, 800, 1200, 1600, 1200, 800, 400) with the middle mile being 5:30. So I've got a ways to go! (As if I didn't know that already.)