How's that for some speed work? Last night's workout was AWESOME. The weather was decent, about 75 degrees and not humid, which I think was a huge help. I was also really trying to have a deliberately positive attitude, more often than not I think it's my mental defeatist state that makes these workouts suck so much.
As usual Ameenah and I ran together, she really has been my rock throughout this program and I don't know what I'd do without her. Our 12:30 group has really fallen apart, which is pretty sad. Some people have been AWOL for a while now, possibly having dropped out altogether. Some of the 12:30s decided they can run faster, some slower, Ameenah and I are pretty much right around 12:30/12:45 on a good long run day.
We did the warm-up lap around campus, about 1.25 miles, a little slower than usual but probably because we went the opposite way this time which is a little hillier. I was worried that would ruin my performance for the remainder of the workout but it turns out I had nothing to worry about. The workout was to be 4X1600 at 40-60 seconds faster than LSD pace with a recovery lap in between. We're not too good with figuring out what that means so we did four miles with a walking recovery lap (most groups jog, we tend to walk) in between each mile. I think knowing we had those recoveries coming was a huge mental boost, we OWNED those miles. During the 20 miler Coach Carol said a steady run/walk program got her through her fastest marathon ever, maybe there is something to that after all.
Overall pace, including 3/4 mile walking, was 12:12. Because of those recovery laps I don't have a real good idea of how fast we did the actual running but Ameenah was smart and kept track, we were around, if not a bit under 11 minutes per mile. That's pretty speedy! And we didn't feel awful, we felt a little tired at the end of each mile but overall really good. I did the last .4 miles at a 10:46, that's really good for me especially at the end of a tough workout. We absolutely felt like rock stars at the end. We haven't had a group run that encouraging since the last sixteen miler a few weeks ago. REALLY needed that boost!
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