Fartlek Workout

Today's workout was different, but it was still a good one. I had very little time to run and I wanted to put in at least 8 miles. I decided that I would mix in some harder running to help cut the time down a little bit. I ended up leaving my house and running through the neighborhood and down to Maple Ave. The first 8:00 (1.15 miles) was the warm-up and I felt really good. When I got to Leslie Ave I turned and ran up the hill "hard." When I got to the top of the hill I made the corner and continued my hard effort to the Stone Ave intersection. This is just over 1/4 mile. The purpose of this interval was to get a hard effort into my legs early and wake them up a little, but not to ruin the rest of my run. I ended up doing this at about 6:19 pace, which still felt like 5k effort because of the hill. I then made my way back to the Avenue and down to the Junction. When I hit the tracks I ran the Ainsworth Loop (1.06 mi) at 5:42 pace. I then turned left and headed out Plains Road for a 1/2 mile at an easy pace . When I got to the Old Church Road intersection I ran that loop (1.04 mi) in 5:41 pace. I then made the same 1/2 mile trip back to the junction at an easy pace and when I hit the bottom of the hill at the junction I ran up the hill hard (0.4. mi; 5:53 pc). I took the next 3/4 of a mile down the flat of Maple Ave as a "recovery" and when I got to the golf course I ran the final mile (entirely uphill) to my house at Marathon Pace. The effort was closer to 5k and I thought my heart was going to come out of my throat at the end. I ended up running the final 1.07 miles at 6:28 pc which was pretty much top end with all the climbing that I had to do in that mile. The entire run worked out to be at a 6:39 overall pace. It was a good workout to put in the books and I still made it to work on time!