Intervals: 03/31/2011

I made myself get up this morning.  I've had to wage a war with gravity every morning this week just to get out of bed.  I won this morning.  I'm finding that work is really getting in the way of stuff I'd rather be doing lately.  I really enjoy my runs, but I hate having to get up at 5:30AM to do them.  Why couldn't I have been born independently wealthy? 

So, it was cool and cloudy again this morning.  Perfect for running but the clouds are starting to wear me down.  I'm looking forward to some sun this weekend.  I was scheduled to do intervals again this morning.  I dragged myself out of bed by telling myself that I would just go for a nice easy 4 mile run and then I did intervals anyway.  Yes, I can use the ol' bait and switch on myself.  My subconscious is pretty gullible. 

I started out with a nice easy warm up mile at 10:09/mile, then started my intervals.  I did 10 sets just like last week.  Two minutes of concentrating on not dying and one minute of marvelling in the fact that I'm still alive.... ten times.  I did most of my not dying portions faster than last week.  I just didn't feel like I had pushed myself hard enough after last weeks intervals, so I picked it up a bit.  I don't think the intervals in the program I'm working are fast enough.  If I'm working on speed, I want to really work on speed.  What's the sense in holding back?  Of course, that meant the rest portions were slower, with a couple of them dropping below 12:00/mile.  But they don't call it rest for nothin'. 

My third fast segment was my slowest at 8:33/mile.  In addition, I had three in the 8:20 range, three faster than 8:00, and two right around 8:00/mile.  Of the three that were faster than 8:00/mile I saved my fastest for lastest at 7:23/mile.  I felt like I was going pretty fast, and I guess I was, for me.  I still had half a mile to get back to the car, so I put myself in steady pace mode and averaged about 9:40/mile over that half mile.

Today's Stats:  I did 4.77 miles in 44:01 for an average pace of 9:14/mile.  With the exception of my most recent 5K, that's my fastest average pace over the course of a full workout.  So far, I'm pleased with this 5K speed improvement routine.  I probably won't really know until my next 5K how I'm doing, but I feel like after just two weeks I've already seen some improvement. 

Next up:  I'm supposed to swim tomorrow.  We'll see if I can make myself get up for that in the morning.  Saturday or Sunday will be a long run.  I'm looking forward to that.  I really enjoyed putting myself on cruise control and just going last week.  This week I'll try to remember to take something to drink and eat along the way.