This morning I got to the track parking lot at Joe Walker Middle School by about 5:15 am.  I got out and started warming up. I ran a loop around the park (Lane Park) and the school and then headed north on 55th to meet Karl. As I arrived at Ave M I spotted his headlamp bobbing toward me just on the other side of the intersection. So I turned and we ran back to the parking area to begin our intervals.

The plan was to do 3 intervals at Half Marathon Pace: 1.5 miles, 2 miles, and 1.5 miles.  I put the 2 miler 2nd as I am typically a little stronger as the workout progresses. However, as the first rep progressed and I saw some awesome splits on my watch, I decided to continue and make the first repeat the 2 miler. Now, last time Karl and I did miles here, circling Joe Walker and Lane Park, my Garmin measured the circle right at 1 mile. Karl’s GPS measured the mile to be a little more than a lap. Today, my Garmin was beeping splits early. It said I finished the first 2 miles well ahead of the end of the lap so I continued to make a whole lap. Online I plotted out the course and it measures .99 miles so I will count whole laps as whole miles. Consequently, I had to do some mathematical gymnastics to calculate my splits within the laps. Fortunately I measured the extra time to finish the lap (or half lap). I added those extra seconds evenly within the splits to get the following:

Wow, even with the correction those splits were all faster than my half marathon pace! I cannot think of a better long distance interval / tempo workout that I have done .  Period…