Wednesday Night Speed:  3 x 1 mile

October 3rd

Yep you read that right, mile repeats and with a whole lot of recovery I might add; try 2 minutes and 30 seconds (a lifetime by my coach’s standards).

Wasn’t sure how I felt about these as we warmed-up.  I did 800s a few weeks back (that were SO hard) but that’s it for track workouts.  More than the lack of speed I was wondering how my legs were doing post 8 mile tempo followed-up with a 21 miler at 8:12 pace.

Guess we will find out.

It was an amazing night.  Summer was desperately trying to hold on but fall was clearly in the air (I mean it is October right?).  The sun was slowly setting and we were off with the first mile.  Surprising to anyone who has ever read this blog, we were in fact fast though the first 200m split and I tried to settle down a bit for the second 200.

Our group consisted of Megha, Joel and myself (the rest of the group was running some crazy hill workout).

As expected we were fast through the 400 (under 90) but I decide to try to just settle in and relax.  As we came around each split I glanced at my watch and knew it was fast but since I felt good I tried to just focus on how I was feeling instead of how fast we were running.

I finished in 5:59.  I can’t remember my last sub 6 mile.  Now I should have mentioned earlier that these miles were supposed to be cut downs and our fastest one was supposed to be 6:03 (6:08, 6:05, 6:03).

So we missed by a few seconds.  (Just a few).

Joel wanted to lead the next one and try to get us back on pace.  I tucked in behind him and tried to stay relaxed.

Four laps later I finished in 5:58.

Guess I’m not the only one who struggles with pace.  It still felt good and really relaxed.

As we lined up for number 3 Joel backed off since he was going to run 4.  I didn’t really have a plan, I was just going to see how I felt and try to stay relaxed.

I managed a 5:53.  It felt hard but I never felt strained like I was racing, so while we didn’t hit pace, I think the effort was right.  Guess time will tell.  Maybe I’m running the wrong distance.  Maybe I need to sign up for a 5K?

run pretty run fast