Last-Minute 3x1600 on the Track

It had been 5 weeks since my last speed workout because I spent most of November nursing a sore calf. But on Friday, I was PLANNING on hitting the running path along River Parkway to do 2x2 mile intervals. I figured that I'd do a bit of a longer warm-up to see if the track was clear after Monday's snowfall. Well, it was KINDA clear. I ended up thinking it was good enough to do 3x1600 intervals instead of running down by the river!

My workout. The blue line off the track to the west was grabbing a
snow shovel to lay near the start/finish line so I knew when to stop!
(It was really dark and the snow cover made it hard to see the lines on the track.)


Track conditions. Green=GOOD, yellow=OK, red=WORST. The coating
of snow wasn't slick as my shoes still hit the "grippy" track beneath.

I wasn't planning on hitting the track, so I didn't turn off the "auto split" on my Garmin that would go off every 1/2 mile, so I took my own 1/4 mile splits (otherwise every 800 meters would clock in as just over a half mile, and I'd have lots of random splits). I didn't have any big goals, just to run hard and see if my calf would hold up. I was aware that 1:25/400 was going to be a 5:40 mile (well, 1600 to be exact), so that was about where I wanted to start.

3x1600 with 2:00 rest between:

5:38.9 = 1:26, 1:25, 1:23, 1:23

5:30.6 = 1:23, 1:23, 1:22, 1:21

5:18.9 = 1:21, 1:21, 1:19, 1:16

YES, I NEGATIVE SPLIT EVERY SPLIT! All 12 splits either stayed the same as the one before it, or dropped in time. And I was flying for that final 800 with 400 splits of 1:19 and 1:16 (that's a 2:35 half mile!).

And my leg held up! I had a normal long run this morning with some faster miles in the middle, and things felt OK! Hoping I'm getting back to normal soon...