Speed Workout Today!

I finally managed to get in more than 3 miles on a weekly run today! After my break for my achilles and a slow return back, I'm finally feeling strong enough to really push it during the speed workout.

I did 7 miles total, and though my training plan called for 8 I am confident that I gave it my best and that it was a good strong effort.

After a one mile warm-up at 4mph, I did Daniel's C25K W2D1 intervals with him;

90 seconds running
2 minutes walking
(times six - for a total of 21 minutes)

I decided it would be fun to shake things up a little during the speed intervals, so I spent 30 seconds at 5mph, then 30 at 6mph, and the final 30 at 7mph. It was glorious! I tired myself out rather quickly and was feeling a good 'ol burn in my hiney by the time I'd hit the 7mph stretch. I love that feeling! I'm hoping it means we're burning calories... and I assume it has at least something to do with that!

After Daniel was finished he took off for some meetings and I did a lap at 5mph while I thought through what I should do for the rest of the workout. I decided to jump back into the same intervals and did another set of 6 of them. Somewhere between set 4 and 5 (or maybe 5 and 6?) I lost count and decided I'd just play around until I hit 7. On the next interval I added 5 seconds to each 30 second interval.

Then I got brave. I picked it up to 1 full minute at 5mph, 1 full minute at 6mph, and then 30 seconds at 7mph. What a doozy! I felt so strong and athletic! My time time I was nearing the end of the first 5mph minute, my legs and buns were all ready feeling fatigued. Near the end of the 6mph minute I was thinking, "I can't go on!" But I talked myself into at least trying and I did the full 30 seconds of 7mph. What a rush!

It sort of makes my head spin to think about possibly trying even faster speeds, but I think I'll hover around my 5/6/7 speeds for a while and play around until I'm comfortable. Then maybe we'll dig in, jump that speed up and chase the burn later? Haha.

So much fun!

Oh, and I finished the 7 miles in 1:37:53... I'll have to use a calculator to figure out average pace, but seeing as how that factors in quite a few segments of walking at 3mph for recovery and a couple laps at 4mph - I'd say that's actually impressive.