Speed, Speed and More Speed

I am supposed to be Marathon training. But I like to run fast too. So I keep getting sucked into things...

This week's plan was supposed to be 7 "easy" Tuesday, Speed work Wednesday, 8 easy Friday and a long run of 17 Sunday.

Nah.

Tuesday was LRS group day. And, as usual, I got drawn into running with people faster than me. This one guy taunts me regularly on not keeping up with him. But he seems to "race" all his workouts. This day he said he would take it easy, so I said "if you run 8:30's I'll run with you." And he did start out at 8:30, so I was running with him and another guy, who is even faster.

Well, they just couldn't hold that pace. By the end of mile 1, we had run 8:19, which means we were running even faster. I let those two slip away, but I have real trouble slowing down once I am in a good pace...

(FYI, they ended up accelerating every mile and running the last mile at 6:15!)

So I was alone, but feeling OK, and kept pushing the pace, and the next 5.5 looked like this:

8:14, 8:00, 7:59, 7:49, 7:45 and 7:45 for 1/2 mile before cutting back for the last 1/2 mile.

So, a solid tempo, and in my heavier shoes. Basically BQ pace, which scared me silly, because it wasn't easy.

Next day was track club. Legs felt fine as we warmed up with 1.5 mile jog and then 4 laps of striding the straights and jogging the curves. Then we did 4 300s, with 100 recoveries. Two at "medium" pace and two at "hard".

Next we did an 800 - 1st lap at 5k pace, and then, faster. I ran a 3:11 with splits of 1:41 and 1:30. It was fun.

Then a 1600, with 3 laps at 5K pace and the last lap faster. My first 3 were near 1:40 (6:40 pace) and I fnished with a 91 last lap (6:04 pace) and a total of 6:33. FUN!

Two lap recovery, annnnnd, do it again. 1600 with each lap faster than the last. I started a little slower but followed direction and sped up each lap. I love negative splits, and so does the coach, as we do this stuff all the time. Good training for negative splitting races. You learn that there is always a faster gear, and your body CAN go faster.

My splits were 1:47, 1:42, 1:38 and 1:32 for a 6:39. There was pain, but I never fell apart. Love finishing strong.

And that was it, but with a cool down it added up to 8.5 miles. And my PF was flaring pretty bad. Speed work definitely is bad for the PF, so I should probably cut back...

But you see, this club has a special event Saturday. A 10K time trial/picnic brunch. Over a very hilly course. Runners head out staggered, dipsea style, so we theoretically all finish together. I figured to miss it due to my training schedule - I didn't want to mess up my 17 miler.

But I decided to do it anyway. Try not to "race" it too hard (hahaha!), and then go ahead and do 17 the next day anyway on tired legs. This time I will fuel up better.

Also, I found out about some all-comer track meets at the high school track coming up this summer. So I will probably get to race a mile (1600) on the track and take a shot at 6:00. So I better do more speed work...

Whatever. Life is good.