To gear up for Friday’s race, I decided to do some speed work on the treadmill on Monday. (The heat index was over 100. There’s no way I could have done this outside with the same results.)

I decided to do a workout consisting of a quarter mile at 5.0 (easy pace), quarter mile at 6.0 (around current 5k pace), quarter mile at 7.0 (the speed work), and a final quarter at 5.0, repeated three times for a total of three miles.

I also did a final quarter mile where I started at 7.0 for a minute and then progressively lowered my speed to ease into a cool down period.

Here’s what the pace graph for such a workout looks like:

I added lines as mile markers, so you can see where the next set started.

My average pace was around 10:15 min/mi, which is the first time I’ve seen an average starting with a 10 since April, and the first I’ve seen below 10:20 since March. Yay, my knee issues didn’t completely break me!

I ran the 5k distance in around 31:44, or just 20 seconds shy of the 5k I ran in March. The second fastest 5k distance I’ve ran!

I plan on taking it easy on my Wednesday run to rest up for Friday. I don’t plan on trying to break that 30 minute barrier just yet, but I’m still going to give it my all!