The need for speed

I'm not a very fast runner. I'm not really very fast at anything, except maybe eating. But this morning I had a small breakthrough on my mile repeats. The running workouts I'm doing for my training these days comes from a half-marathon program where you run 3 days a week - one long, one tempo, and one interval. Perfect for allowing time for other activities (such as swimming and biking... how about that?). I followed this program to run a half marathon in May... it allowed me to knock 6 minutes off my time from last year on the same course.

So this morning I had a short and intense running workout scheduled... after warming up, I was to do 3 x 1 mile repeats, with 2 minutes of active recovery in between each. I had done this workout three times while training for the May half marathon, and each time it hadn't really gone so well. The pace for the repeats is calculated based on your planned finish time in the half - based on my plan of a 1:45 finish (or 8-minute miles), the pace of my intervals was to be 7:15/mile. Not an all-out sprint by any means, but quite fast for someone slow (like myself).

When I had done this workout before, all 3 times my first mile was bang-on 7:15 (I don't have any kind of GPS unit... this was just me winging it). However, the second and third miles each slowed down by 15 seconds... meaning mile #2 was 7:30 and mile #3 was 7:45 - that happened three times during the 10-week program.

Fast-forward to this morning - the first mile was a not-so-encouraging 7:30. I was pissed because when the alarm went at 5:45 I didn't want to get out of bed to run, and this was just adding significance to those thoughts. As I completed the second mile, however, the watch read 7:20. Wait... was that faster than the first mile? What happened... did I get into it 25 seconds before I hit the start button? So I set off on the third mile, and I'm feeling it... the fatigue, that is. Cross the line, look down... 7:10. Whaaaaat? Was that actually faster than the mile before? Sure enough, it was.

So, I'm not really sure what to make of the results from this morning. I like to think that being diligent with my tempo runs and intervals is actually starting to pay off a little. Another thing is that I am biking more now than I was during the prep for the May race - that is probably adding to my overall fitness a little, I would think.

Instead of my usual tempo run this Friday, I've signed up for a local 5k race - I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do there. As usual, time will tell.