Afternoon 5 mile run

5 miles (8 km) | 43:59 | 8:48/mile (5:30/km)

I tried something different today. Instead of running in the morning before work, I tried running in the afternoon after work. I noticed in my stretching that I was quite a bit tighter in the morning when I wake up (even after stretching) than in the evening before bed. I also thought it would be easier as my weekday runs got longer to run in the afternoon. Since it doesn't usually get too hot in Denmark, I thought it might be worth a try.

After one day, I don't think I like it. The problem is the bicycle ride home from work. I usually ride pretty hard (I want to get home), and that tires my legs too much. It's better to run in the morning with fresh legs, and then ride after my run.

I will run tomorrow after work so that I don't have two runs too close together, and then after my rest day on Thursday I will shift my run back to the morning.

I also tried some harder running. My legs felt good and I was getting sick of plugging along at 9:40/mile all the time. Since I skipped my pace run last week, and the Friday run this week is just a plain old five miler (not a pace run), I decided to run some harder intervals.

At each kilometer mark, starting after 1 km, I ran harder for 90 seconds, followed by running easy to the next kilometer mark. The pace I ran at was somewhere around what I imagine my 5K pace would be (but I'm not sure, because I don't know how far I ran each time). Then, for the last kilometer to home, I ran harder for 90 seconds, then even harder for 90 seconds, then another notch harder until home.

My kilometer splits were (if I hit my watch at the right spot) 5:39, 5:23, 4:51, 5:40, 5:52, 5:37, 6:04, and 4:53. That works out to a pace in minutes per mile for each split of 9:05, 8:40, 7:48, 9:07, 9:26, 9:03, 9:47, and 7:52. On this 8 km out-and-back run to the south end of the Egå Engsø (a man-made lake near my house), the second kilometer is downhill (and the seventh uphill).

I might try some more focused speed work (strides? intervals?) after I get back from my US vacation in the end of July. I had thought to run hills, but I'm pretty sure I won't do that. I don't want to try it before my knees are used to the distance I'm adding to them. And, since I've registered for the Amsterdam marathon, I don't suppose I actually need to be able to handle hills for the race.

Tomorrow is 3 miles easy.