1/31/06: Stressful Days Call for Fun Speedwork Times!

I won’t even lie-this week has been another stressful week. I have yet to figure out if this year is starting to go down as the most stressful year ever, or maybe I am just not handling the stress well?! Well, whatever the case, I decided, yeah it’s been great to be taking it easy and working on my form and yadda-yadda--making excuses to not push myself, so I knew tonight was going to be THE speedwork night.

I stopped to get a Vegan chocalate chip cookie from the Smoothe King at the tennis center before I ran since I was famished and I needed *something* before I ran and I ended up seeing the group of Memorial Park Regulars hanging out, drinking something called Tilt? Hmmm, they offered me some but I polietly declined since I was about to go run. I did share my cookie with them though and chat for a few minutes. I knew now I had no excuse to back out of doing this workout, especially if they were watching me run, lol.

After a 10 minute warmup, I knew I was going to run strickly for speed and damn the form unless I started hurting or something weird. Of course, today was not a great day to do speedwork-it was so crowded at the Park and I felt like it took me almost 1.5 miles to get in a good pace. Ughh...around mile 1 I was passed by a guy who paced behind me too closely for half a mile, so sure enough, when I saw him at mile 1.5, I threw down past him and dusted him and the girl that was shoulder-to-shoulder with him. I think he thought I was mad at him, but in all-due respect, I was tired of being ‘right’ behind someone so I mainly meant to get away from everyone else and run ‘my own’ pace.

Overall, my legs could tell I haven’t done speedwork in a couple of weeks…so of course, I need to get back to one track workout a week starting next week now that I know my body can handle it. It felt sooo good to run fast, no joke. The sad thing is that I know I could have gone faster, maybe not consistently at 8:05/mile, but more mileage at 8:15/mile. Ah well, something to work on this spring! To ‘only’ be 25 seconds slower then my 5k PR on a granite trail is nothing to feel bad about anyhow…I’m backkkkkkkkkkkkkkk! Next on the agenda, SMARTie run Thursday at Terry Hershey Park. Either 7 miles or 4, I havn’t decided how my legs feel yet.


The STATS:
4 miles
35.43 total running

25:43 5k
ave 8:16/mile

Mile1: 8:30
Mile2: 8:07
Mile3: 8:14
Mile.1: .52

Heart-rate: 184 av/207 max (whoa!)

Weather: lower 60’s, really windy though.