PR Long Run Treadmill Workout!!

After Friday's treadmill 5K PR workout where I ran 17:04, I started a long run on the treadmill on Monday with high hopes. I posted about some faster treadmill workouts throughout December last week, with the best one having my 6 faster miles in the middle done in 35:43 (5:57.17 pace).

I had the same plan for those "pace miles" for this week's run, but I was planning on speeding up a bit sooner. I speed up 0.1 mph every half mile, but I want to be able to take my splits every half mile... so I usually speed up on the 0.4s and 0.9s instead of the 0.5s and the 1.0s so that I'm not trying to speed up and take a split on my Garmin at the same time. But this time I was going to speed up on the 0.3s and 0.8s. So that ends up being 1.2 miles done 0.1 mph faster than last week. That sounds like it could be a lot, but it's really only the difference of a few seconds over those 6 miles. I was going for a PR on this long run.

I warmed up for 2.5 miles, then started the "pace miles" at 9.4 mph, speeding up 0.1 mph every half mile (at mile 2.8, mile 3.3, mile 3.8, etc.). I also sped up an EXTRA 0.1 mph within the pace miles at 4 different spots: at miles 1, 3, 5, and 5.5 miles to end at 10.9 mph. Here were my splits:

3:11, 3:09, 3:04, 3:02, 3:01, 2:59, 2:55, 2:54, 2:52, 2:51, 2:47, 2:45

= 35:34.9 (5:55.82/mile!)

That was about 8 seconds faster than the week before (that's the tiny difference that going 0.1 mph faster for 1.2 miles creates, along with speeding up 1 extra time near the end), and about 3 seconds faster that my PR for this workout which came about 11 months ago!

Hopped off for 90 secs in my cooldown to make sure the boys were getting ready for school. :)

The slight bad news is that my left glute felt a little "hung up" early on in that run. I thought it'd loosen up and feel better, and it DID during the fast miles... I didn't think about it at all. But then it felt SORE and ACHY since then. I skipped a ride on Tuesday to help it rest. I've been stretching it how I can, and using our massage gun with the "bullet" attachment to get in deep. Yesterday's easy run felt TOTALLY NORMAL, but then I still feel it while walking around. I saw Dr. Backus (my local chiro) who dug in it a lot and figures it's a piriformis issue. Might be turning my normal speed workout tomorrow into just another easy run... Trying to get this nipped before it turns into something worse!