Two Interval Workouts: Mile Repeats at the Track, and 5 Min Repeats on the Bike

I hit the track early on Friday morning for some intervals. I've been doing shorter intervals this year, so I thought it was time to "mix it up" with my "normal" go-to interval workout: 3x1600 on the track. In year's past, that's my interval workout at least 1/3 of the time, but this year I've done at least a dozen interval workouts since doing that one! Maybe more!

Two weeks ago on the track, it was frosty and slick on top of the large tarps they put out to protect the track from football cleats. But for this workout, football season was over and the track was clear!

I didn't have any MAJOR goals, but I ran the first 1600 to see if I could be around 5:40 (which would be 2:50 for each 800). I was a bit slow with an opening 2:53, but then I sped up a bit:

2:53 + 2:46 = 5:39.3
2:49 + 2:42 = 5:31.6
2:43 + 2:38 = 5:21.2

Average of 5:30.70 / 1600

I took it too easy for that first interval. WHAT'S NEW?!? When I realized that after the 2nd interval, I wondered if I could hit 5:20 for my final repeat. Close!

A bit of a red line for my final half lap!


Nothing unexpected in my pace and heart rate.

Then the next day, I finally had a good trainer workout! Prior to this one, I had a nice trainer workout 3.5 weeks ago (shown but not really mentioned in this post), but because I've been out on my bike so much this year, I haven't had many big/good trainer rides. This was a simple 8x5 min effort. My efforts were hard (and "hard" just means a normal effort in a slightly hard gear), hard, standing, descending to a harder gear every minute (starting in an easier gear), hard, alternating standing and seated every min, standing, and hard. And that's what my heart rate says as well:

About the only thing visible WITHIN these efforts is the 6th of alternating standing and seated.

It's nice having solid back-to-back days like that!