This one was much closer to the real goal of the workout. The warm up was calm, the strides did their job, and the two tempo blocks landed in a tight and repeatable range instead of drifting into a late-race effort.
The key detail is control. The pace stayed steady across both main blocks, and even though the effort was honest, it did not tip into the kind of overcooked finish that had shown up in earlier sessions. That makes this a more useful quality day.
The takeaway is simple: this is the kind of tempo work worth repeating. It gave you aerobic and threshold stimulus without turning the session into something messier or costlier than planned.
Carry forward. Use Sunday to build endurance with discipline, not to prove fitness again at the end.
What followed. Long Run — Controlled Easy. A pure easy long run. Stay conversational, keep the middle steady, and only allow a slightly smoother finish if the day feels very comfortable.