Notes
Dang, I'm out of shape or something as this was way too hard. Into a headwind the whole way and on gravel for the first half really made this more challenging.
Still feel like I'm missing something since being sick and this just emphasized that fact. Did find some major tightness/trigger points through my iliopsoas today and my stride felt much better for it - I'm pretty confident that it's been the underlying source of my random trigger points in my glutes/piriformis and low back. With that in mind, I've seemingly been running with crap efficiency and poor muscle activation for the last couple of weeks which likely explains my sluggishness of late (along with the sickness). A few more days of targeted massage work should make a big difference - my glutes felt much more engaged today and the triggers in my glutes have really faded after just a couple days of psoas work - glad to find the iliacus and oblique issues today as well which already made a difference after just a few hours of random work.
Also of note, my upper body felt very weak at this faster pace...need to ramp up some strength work. Planning on increasing my strength/core work as soon as I get the kinks out (no sense in trying to strengthen a damaged/TP'd muscle group - much like my stretching has given almost nothing this last week).
Tempo details - 3.25 in 20:22 - 6:16 pace. Must have been really slow on the first warm-up miles to only net a 7:01 effort (I was trying to keep it slow and the wind made sure of it - especially right along the lake.)