Day 29: Mile: 5:57

Slower than I expected, even with my various excuses. My splits:

1:22
1:33
1:32
1:30

The track was covered in ice when I went by in the morning. I went back up early afternoon, and it was mostly clear, but there were plenty of big puddles, and the parts that were not clear were dangerously slippery. During my second warm-up lap, I decided to get my ice scraper out of the car and try to clear the layer of ice in turn 1, which was still in the shade. I scraped away for about fifteen minutes and made a pretty good dent in it. I finished my warm-up, stretched and got started.

Besides having to run around the puddles (all in lane 1) and slow down near the ice patch, there was a stiff wind to contend with on the backstretch and turns 3 & 4. The wind would have benefited me on the home stretch and turns 1-2, except that this part of the track is sheltered by a hill, so not much help there. My adductor problem was firing up during lap 1, but as I eased off the pace, it wasn't too bad.

All in all, I didn't push too hard, but if I take away all my excuses and went all out, I probably wouldn't have been more than 5-10 seconds faster. That's probably where I should be, but isn't where I had hoped to be. What it means is that there is a long, long road ahead to get to sub-five.

I still plan to do easy mileage for the next couple of weeks to allow my adductor to recuperate. My medium term goals are to get to 5:30 by end March, 5:15 by end June, and 5:00 by end-Sep. Those don't feel all that realistic right now, but I'll keep them as targets until I need to change them.