~5 miles @ ~8.7 min/mi

Double-laps at 3:43 ⇒ 3:37 ⇒ 3:35 ⇒ 3:39 ⇒ 3:42 ⇒ 3:41 ⇒ 3:37 ⇒ 3:35 with a lovely cool breeze: Robin is riding his bicycle to UM via Sligo Creek and Northwest Branch, ~10 miles, so I drive to the track and get in some mileage as he pedals. A few sprinters and some steady-slow joggers are also using the facility at Kehoe Field on the west side of campus. The temperature is about 80°F, dew point below 50°F, north wind gusting to more than 20 mi/hr. Nice!

At first I intend to do ten repeats, but after five brisk ones I'm hoping Robin arrives sooner than planned. The seventh interval is tough; 8 x 800m sounds plausibly planned; ~5 miles on the GPS looks decent. Pushing hard, the final test half-mile ties for fastest. Then cool down, don shirt, and meet Robin at the Marathon Deli. The Garmin GPS trackfile shows boring orbits and 1-mile average splits, with an up-and-down square-wave pace chart.

^z - 2012-07-21