Hot as Hell Track Workout

Ok, so I felt like crap when I woke up for track practice this morning. Not sick, just exhausted and I knew it was already in the 80s outside. In that sleepy haze, I just rolled over and went back to sleep.

Of course when I woke up, I was mad at myself. I paid $100 for this track program-not a ton of money I know, but it's not like I can just throw that away! And over the past couple of weeks, I've noticed definite improvements in my running. Maybe it's all mental, but it's there. So before I even left for work I told myself I had to do the missed workout this evening (the workout is emailed the night before, as I've mentioned before). I sat in an ALL day meeting so my hips were tight as hell! Then I ate a light dinner, studied until the temperature got below 90, took 3 bottles of ice water on my bike and I was off.

I don't know what happened! It was a great workout-in fact, considering that the temperature was in the range of the 4th circle of hell, I killed these laps! My pace since track started has been between 1:47 and 1:56 per lap (400m)...so my very broad goal is 800s in under 4 minutes, 1200s under 6 minutes, and 1600s under 8 minutes.

Here's what I did tonight:

1x1200, 5:19

1x800, 3:39

2x400, 1:31 and 1:32

1x800, 3:43

1x1200, 5:56 (kind of hit a wall of heat exhaustion here!)

So I didn't negative split, but I ran those laps much faster than I have been over the past few weeks. I'm not sure why-do I talk myself out of running faster when I'm with the group because I feel like some of them "should" be faster than me? Am I just too tired in the mornings? Was the heat making me just want to freaking get done? No idea!

Shelter Island 10K

I was feeling pretty strong last week, after my interval workout on Tuesday and this track workout on Thursday:
1x1600 10K pace

2x400 10K pace

1x1600 5K pace

2x400 5K pace
I ran that second 1600 (mile) in 7:39, so I was happy with that. I went into the weekend feeling confident about the race in Shelter Island.

And then I drank too much on Friday night. Not enough to actually be hungover on Saturday, but enough to not feel great. You know when your body is just achy because of too much alcohol and not enough sleep? Yeah, I had that. In addition, I forgot to bring sandwiches with us on the way to Shelter Island so I didn't have any lunch! For a 5:30 race. Luckily, I'd had eggs and ham on a bagel for breakfast, remembered to bring Vitamin Water, and there was a fun size Milky Way in my race bag. Someone also gave me a banana so I had a little sugar and electrolyte rush before the race.
Somehow, I managed to PR this one. No idea how that happened really. Well, I kind of do. I had this realization recently that running should be hard. I know, it's obvious but I kept wanting to feel good. And then I realized "screw feeling good. You're running and it's supposed to be hard! You can feel good afterward, when you're having beer and a cupcake. Now suck it up and move, you idiot."

So that was my mindset on Saturday.  The first mile was 8:20. Every time I saw my mile splits, I knew I wasn't slowing down at all. I got to the 5th mile and saw the time was around 42 minutes-I forget exactly. But I realized I could definitely beat my time in the mini 10K the week before so I kept pushing myself. When I crossed the 6 mile point, I saw the clock was at 50 or 51 something, and I knew I could beat the week prior fairly significantly. Plus, the end is easy to run fast-it was on the grass, there were tons of cheering  people, etc. I felt like I was flying, and saw that the clock said 52:16 when I crossed the finish line, but I wasn't sure what time I'd started. Turns out my official time was 51:57, over 2 minutes faster than the week before! 8:21/mile! I placed 94th out of 494 women, so that was cool too. Now I need to get some friends to do it with me next year!!!