I promise not to make that horrible pun about how I am "back on track."

Admit it, a little bit of your soul dies every time someone does that. I kid, I kid.

On Tuesday afternoon I dipped my pinkie toe back into the world of speed work for the first time since last December (when my finished my workout by limping off the track with insane pain in my left calf), and what a gorgeous day for it.

My main goal, really, was just to not collapse and die, and my secondary goals were to maintain structural integrity in the calf regions and not embarrass myself. So winning!

My workout was two sets of 3 x 300m at 6:15 pace (so about 1:09 each) with 100m recoveries. When I'm in decent shape I shoot to do this workout at 6:00 pace (or 1:06ish each), and when I'm in REALLY good shape I can do it in the 5:30-5:40 (1:01-1:03ish) range.

The 6:15 pace was based on my Spring Forward 5K time, so I didn't know how hard or easy it was likely to feel at this point. I do, however, know that I have a bad habit of running intervals too fast, so I decided that I would just try to run them by effort & take it just a tiny bit easier than normal & not try to kill myself trying to hit specific numbers my first time out this year.

Kind of all over the map, but really not too terrible in general! Overall, I was pleased.

I still have a bit of a twinge in my right calf. It hurt a bit while I warmed up, felt totally fine running fast, & gave me just the slightest dull ache during the recoveries and cool down. Nothing too overly concerning so far, but you better believe I am stretching & rolling the heck out of it every night.

Of particular note to SF folks, I also learned from Coach Ken (who coaches a kids' track & field team from the Tenderloin every Tuesday evening) that apparently the city will finally (FINALLY!) be refurbishing the thirty-year-old track at Kezar Stadium later this summer. It will be open through July, then closed for three months while for construction. AND we're getting an extra lane! For me the timing works out fairly well; after July I'll only have 3-4 more speed workouts before Santa Rosa, & it's no big deal to do those somewhere else.