I had toyed with the idea of getting my morning out of the way early so as to leave teh office early and have Cybex equipments to myself early, but that rarely actually happens. So by the time I got to the gym ~quarter to 6, there was interference at practically every station, and a stationary bike class was in session with obnoxious loud music. After one set, I decided I might as well go hit the treadmill - but then even there, the ones that aren't in need of repair were all in use. So I ended up doing a second set on whatever Cybexes I could. Notably, I squat-pressed 12 reps at 280#, up 30# from my previous level.

By the time I finished that second set, a couple treadmills were open, so I grabbed one. Either I wasn't recovered from lifting or I did something stupid with over-breathing, or some combination of both, so my first mile just sucked. Once I straightened my head out, I got in a mile at 6.0 or 6.5 (I tweeted 6.5, but in the clear light of morning I'm finding that a bit hard to credit). At the 3.3mi mark I felt like I hadn't done justice. I was at or more likely a bit past 45 minutes, so I decided to shoot for a full hour. In that overtime is when I got in a couple half-laps at 8.5. Total distance: 4.5mi in ~60 minutes.

I also feel like I'm coming up against the law of diminishing returns, which is to say, I think my progress curve is leveling off because my session time is decreasing. I've considered this a couple times previously but didn't take it to heart. Now that I've reached a point where a 5-mile session in an hour or less is realistic, and I can take miles and more at a moderate jog, I think it's time to ratchet up session base distance.