Horrible-Feeling Intervals... But Not Bad Times

I hit the track yesterday for 4x (800 and 400) with 2 mins rest between all intervals. I got to the track and had to clear the edge of the track of a tarp that had blown into lane 1 in a few spots on the homestretch:

The upper blue lines are me pushing the tarp off the track after my warm-up.
(The lower blue lines are walking between intervals.)

I was NOT feeling great leading up to this workout: I woke up with a "training readiness" of 3 (which is the 2nd lowest I've ever seen, only behind a morning I woke up sick in Mexico), and my "performance condition" that popped up on my Garmin on the way to the track was -3 (usually it's 2, 3, or 4 when starting a run, and RARELY negative, let alone negative 3). I wasn't sure what this workout was going to bring.

After the first 800 and 400, I wasn't sure I'd keep it up. I was considering "throwing in the towel" for this workout. But I kept it up...

Around the 3rd 800, I wasn't sure I make it through the entire workout - I was ready to skip the final 400 if I needed to. But after the 3rd 400, I told myself that my running right now was so good because I was hitting workouts like this. So I knew I had to push through this!

Here's what I ran for these 800s and 400s:

1:21 + 1:19 = 2:41.4
1:14.9
1:17 + 1:18 = 2:36.0
1:13.2
1:16 + 1:17 = 2:34.0
1:12.8
1:17 + 1:16 = 2:33.8
1:12.9

Almost a PERFECT negative split within the 800s and 400s! Only that final 400 was 0.1 sec slower than the one before it. My 800s averaged 2:36.3, and my 400s were 1:13.45.

These splits weren't too different from when I did this workout about a year ago (I THINK that's the last time I did this): I did this last June and last April. My opening 800 was slower yesterday, but the rest of the splits were quite similar. The 400s were faster yesterday! Not NEARLY as bad as I felt while running!