A story of going from being a non-runner to planning for a marathon in three years...

Friday, March 11, 2011

Et Two?



My legs felt shredded from my Wednesday night strength session.

I was still tired from hosting an all day conference on Tuesday.

It was colder outside than I originally thought.

But I decided that running on sore legs is good practice. And that running would give me more energy. And I had a jacket so what did I care about the cold?

So I went out there and pushed through a seemingly easy workout.

But it wasn't easy. No way.

We started with our usual drills (including push-ups!) and did a 2 mile warm-up. Then, after we decided who was doing what, we started our workout. For me, that meant 5 repeats of 2:00 minutes at one mile pace. Recovery meant jogging back to our start point.

Now, I'm not sure what my one mile pace is (I'm hoping to find out next week) since I've never run one single mile all out. So, I just pushed it hard. By the start of the 5th repeat I was pretty tired of this whole thing. Which I think is a good sign.
2.05 mile warm up - 10:02 pace
1st 2:00 - 7:10 pace (.28 miles)
2nd 2:00 - 7:04 pace (.28 miles)
3rd 2:00 - 7:12 pace (.28 miles)
4th 2:00 - 6:57 pace (.29 miles)
5th 2:00 - 6:54 pace (.29 miles)
1.22 mile cool down - 9:38

Total mileage: 6.34

Riverside Speedwork by snmnstrz21 at Garmin Connect - Details

Now, these paces might look amazing (and they are, don't get me wrong), but a little fancy math (okay, the Cool Running race pace calculator) shows me that they really aren't all that much faster than I was running 400s last summer.

Well, okay, maybe they're a little faster.

Aside from marveling at my relative speediness, I have to say my favorite thing about running with this group is how supportive everyone is. Our "coach" truly believes in every one of us and is so encouraging. We all know one another's goals and look forward to seeing everyone achieve them.

And hopefully next week we will actually be able to SEE each other. Daylight saving time, here we come! Let's bury those headlamps!