First Track Workout

It took me a couple of tries to find a track that wasn't on lock down, but I ended up at the high school track this morning. My plan was to run a 1 mile warm up, 6 x 400 with rest laps between each, and finish with a cool down mile. I'm still not really sure how fast to run the 400's. I'm loosely following Hal Higdon's intermediate 5k and 10k plans and he says "somewhat faster than 5k race pace." Runner's World says speed form pace for me should be 7:48. I'm really Type A personality. I need to know an exact plan! I think I followed more of the Runner's World speed for workout than what Hal Higdon had in mind. I only have track workouts scheduled every other week, so I think pushing this hard is OK as long as I recover quickly.

I ran my 1 mile warm up as planned. Then came the 6 x 400 part:

1. Ran it in 2:11 (I was in one of the outer lanes- track etiquette right?) with a pace of 7:38
2. 2:05/7:36
3. 2:13/7:39
4. 2:04/7:17
5. 2:01/7:28
6. 2:04/7:27

I walked one lap after the sixth 400 and called it good. It was already in the mid-70's and I had a ton to accomplish while both kids were in preschool. The 400's felt OK. It felt like I was running really fast, maybe not 100% effort but pretty close to it. Total distance was 4.4 miles.