5/3/06: 4 Fast and Furious Smartie Miles!

Tonight was the last ‘official’ SMART workout for the spring racing season. Although I am kind of bummed that the spring racing season is pretty much done, I can look back on it with many PR’s and memorable and tough training runs. I am pretty pleased with what I have accomplished this spring and look forward to the summer and my goal to run one 10k a month in a different Texas city! And maybe getting on the bike and swim too? Hmmm...

Anyhow, tonight’s workout was a very simple but cool notion…guess what your pace would be for a 4 mile run—BUT!—you had to run without a watch!!!!!!!!!!! I went conservative and guessed 8:50/mile. And I was sooo wrong. I ended up hammering out a 8:15/mile pace. Not my fastest ever time, by any means, but I treated the run like speedwork and let me my legs carry me. I ‘felt’ my pace, and it felt really good to run that fast. Plus I was the second girl to finish-always an accomplishment. And a special shoutout to new blogger and Strider Bill http://humblerunner.blogspot.com/ who guessed his pace within one second-he should consider pacing a 10:30/mile group at some point.

Overall, I was happy with my efforts and I need to get back to my speedwork once a week. Two weeks without it left me antsy and eager. I hope that hitting the track once next week before the Jackrabbit 10khttp://www.rabbitrun4hope.com/ can help me try to land another 10k PR…we’ll see. I’m a little nervous about racing for some reason, but this IS my hometown and I am eager to be back home and race with my mom, who will be doing the 10k walk! Woohoo! It’s hard to believe that slightly over a year ago, I inspired her to get active and now she is competitively racewalking! I LOVE YOU, MOM!

The STATS:
about 4 miles

33:03 mins total running
ave 8:15/mile

Heart-rate: n/a
Weather: mid 70’s. low humidity.