That's why it's called speedWORK!

Whew! I did my speedwork workout this morning. I only got in 7 miles out of the 8 I was supposed to do because my husband had to leave early to go on a business trip. But let me tell you, I worked harder in those 7 miles than I thought possible. The end result: I was soaked and exhaused, but more encouraged than I've ever been.

Here's how the workout went: (I'm doing this more for my own purpose so I can look back on it and rmember what I did and actually see it really happened.) I warmed up for a mile at a 9:23 pace. I was really unsure if I could run a mile at a 7:51 pace and decided to work myself up to it. Speed mile #1 at 8:13 pace. I felt pretty good and did a 1/2 mile recovery. Speed mile #2 started at an 8:06 pace and I decided to run the last 1/4 mile at a 8 min pace. Again, I was pretty tired and took my recovery 1/2 mile at a 9:30 pace. I decided that I could run a mile at an 8 mile pace. Speed mile #3 started at an 8 mile pace and I ran the last maybe 1/8 of a mile at a 7:53 pace. Okay, when I was done, I thought I might fall off the treadmill. I even slowed it down to a walk for a few minutes. After speeding back up to a run I had a little conversation (more like battle) with myself. I knew I was running out of time and was temped to just jog the last mile of my workout and stop at 6.5 miles. I also know I'm obsessive about my workouts and would feel like I failed if I didn't do the whole speed session. So, speed mile #4 looked like this: first 1/4 at 8:24, second 1/4 at 8:13, third 1/4 mile at 8:06 and last 1/4 mile at 8:00. I finished with a 1/2 mile recovery.

No, I didn't do 4 miles at a 7:51 pace, but I ran faster than I ever have. I actually ran a whole mile at lower than an 8 minute mile. More importantly, I pushed myself to places I've never been. I battled my mind, and I won. I didn't give up when things got tough and pushed myself harder than I thought I could.