First Intervals

Wednesday evening I ran the first intervals of this marathon training cycle. It's been too long since I've tried to run that fast. The Pfitz schedule had 6x600. On the way to the track I decided I'd shoot for 2:00 600s (5:20 mile pace) with 200 recoveries. I was pretty surprised at how hard I had to push to get near that pace. After the third 600, I had to extend the recovery to a full 400. I ended up with:
2:03.7, 2:00.3, 2:02.1, 2:03.9, 2:03.6, and 2:02.8
It was still fairly warm and humid (74 degrees with the dewpoint in the upper 60s); that might have hurt a little.

After running those 600s at 2:20 to 2:25 marathon pace I'm even more impressed by the elites who run those paces and faster for the whole 26+ miles.