Good news 1: I found a really nice high school track that seems to be open to the public. It is black track surface, clear markings, far from big roads, etc. I ran there today.

Good news 2: Here is the statistics of my fast 800 meters: 3:13, 3:12, 3:11, 3:12, 3:13, 3:12. And no, I didn't have to gut it out. In fact it felt like the easiest track workout I've done in a long time. Like the track workouts back when I trained for the marathon.

If I average out the interval times (with decimals), I get 3:12.72, which correspond to the pace of a 20:04.5 on 5000 meters. I take this as a really good sign. I'll try to impove 3.5 sec / lap from here.