Measuring for no reason

On Monday, when I got to the track I've been using, I saw about 20 young guys in yellow hard hats walking around and poking the soccer field.  Strange.  I looked for the least confused-looking guy and assumed he was in charge.  I asked if it would be a distraction if I used the track while they did whatever it was they were doing.  He said,"No problem, let me know if they disturb you!"
"Out of curiosity," I asked, "what are they doing?"
"In French we call it plantation, in English..uhh..surveying, learning to survey."
I proceeded to do my 3 interval runs, stopping for a few minutes between each to assure my son that I was 'almost done'.  I carefully noted my times for each run, including my lap splits.  I got a few stares and likely some underhanded remarks, though I wouldn't know for sure about the latter.  I likely looked pretty odd, running around at noon on a Monday on a federal gov't track.  But then, so did they, poking around on the ground at noon on a Monday on a federal gov't soccer field.  And why does a gov't language training center have a 400 m track, anyways?  It occurred to me later that we all did a lot of measuring that day, but did not accomplish a darn thing.  I guess that was rather appropriate, given the location.

Reevaluating my methods

Expected a 6:35 mile today and got 6:50 (1:34, 1:44, 1:49, 1:43).I could blame the heat or my sore knee, but I think I haven't been training so much as I've just been running whenever I feel like it.

I may try 4 runs a week:

Mon - Endurance work: 3 X mid-distance (1 km to 1 mile) at about 95% of my goal speed for that week (maybe sub in a longer run for this, like 5k)

Wed - Pacing: 4-6 X 400m at 100% of my goal speed

Fri - Speed work: 8 X 200m at 105% of my goal speed

Sun - Run a mile (hopefully) and hit my target.

Feel ready for a 5K

Had my wife tow the kids in the bike trailer on my run yesterday.  Turns out that lugging 100 lbs behind you up a hill is harder than running.  Kudos to her.  It certainly was nice to have a mid-run hydration that I didn't have to carry.  Some serious hills in my neighbourhood, though; some 10% slopes even.  Google Earth has an awesome path function that allows you to trace a path anywhere and it adds up the distance for you.  Hence my exactly 5000 metre run starting and finishing in my own driveway.  The other cool thing about the path function is the you can check the elevation at any point and Google Earth can measure the slope over any part of the path.

All that to say, I managed a 28:43 on 5K without killing myself.  This is the first time so far I've finished the run and felt good afterward.  Even felt energized and wanted to go run again...weird.