For the first time since I started running in 2006, I'm training through the winter. Well, sort of. I've kept up running, even though I'm not training for anything in particular. I've mostly been running on the treadmill, including a fun interval workout that I've outlined below for your training pleasure. This morning I ran a 5k in Prospect Park. (Yes, a week before I leave this fair city New York Road Runners starts having races in Brooklyn. Bitches.) Anyway, it turns out that no matter how much you'd like to think your 5k pace is 8:30/mile when you're running on the treadmill, the great outdoors has a harsh reality for you. And that reality is hills, and also temperatures in the 30s plus wind chill.
I averaged 9:33/mile this morning to finish in 29:37. I was feeling OK about it, too, until my friend Kerner, who had also run this morning, texted me to see how I'd done. He then told me that he "might have won [his] age group" - which of course prompted me to look up his finish time and HOLY SHIT - the dude ran 5:32 miles!
He finished in 11th place. I finished at 2711.
Here's that interval workout I mentioned (from the March issue of Runner's World.
Run intervals of decreasing length, from 7 down to 1 minute. Run the first interval at your marathon pace and work your way up to your 5k pace. Recover at an easy jog between each interval for half the length of the previous interval. For me, this means starting at 10:30/mile for 7 minutes, and increasing my speed by 20 seconds per mile until I hit 8:30 for the 1 minute interval. The whole workout takes 42 minutes plus cooldown, and it has kicked my ass every time I've done it!
But maybe you should ask Kerner what he's doing, because apparently it's working.