NYC Central Park Workout

Time: 109:08
Distance: 24.22k

W/u: 38:15 for 8.03k
W/o: 8 x 1k in 3:30 w/ 2 mins rest
C/d: 22:36 for 4.45k

Meagan and I got to sleep in this morning at my former teammate's house in Chelsea. We had a leisurely morning of tv, blogs and coffee before heading out for a workout in Central Park. I wanted to have her get in a nice extended workout which worked out perfectly as we ended at the reservoir. We even got to take in the ING NYC Marathon energy surrounding the finish line. The majority of people lingering around were European runners who seemed to be a part of a running vacation group. It was hard not to be pumped up to be surrounded by such a buzz. I was certain was going to crush this workout, but I guess the busy week of work and traveling finally caught up to her.

I wanted to run continuous loop around the reservoir, but after weaving through numerous walkers/joggers on the first interval I shifted the effort to the carriage trail. The footing isn't as nice and a little hillier, but nothing making the 3:30/k time goal out of reach.

Splits:
3:32.8 (2:01), 3:35.7 (2:01), 3:36.4 (2:01), 3:38.5 (2:04),
3:39.8 (2:01), 3:41.4 (2:01), 3:44.6 (2:00), 3:24 (2:01), 3:03.4 for 48:17 total and 11.74k

That last split is when I decided to tack on one more and see what would happen if I opened the legs up. I felt pretty good clicking off a strong effort, but it was probably mostly downhill. My lungs felt good, not so much the legs. They aren't used to turning over that quick yet. Meagan didn't impress this morning, but she finished with efforts all faster than marathon goal pace.