I was supposed to run yesterday. Was going to get up early. But I slept in instead. It was cold. I was tired. Mostly, I was tired. Bleh. So I told myself I would run after work.
But after work it was pouring down rain. Double-bleh. No good. I toyed with the idea of going to the gym, but I hate the gym, so I puttered around home, cleaning stuff, and went to bed early.
Got up this morning, 4:30 in the frickin’ AM, and it was still cold, and still kind of raining, just that stupid misty kind of rain that’s heavier than fog, but not heavy enough to be, y’know, actual rain. I was going to go back to bed, but then I realized that a) it would really put me off my schedule I had planned for this week, and b) it could very well be full-on raining tonight when I get home from work, just like yesterday. So I threw on my running clothes, fed the cat, and headed outside.
This is going to be Speed Week! What a poor kick-off, huh? A day late. Oh, well. The plan was this: run down to the local high school, about 1.4 miles according to Mapquest, as a warm-up. Then alternate a lap on the track (400 meters) at at least an 8:50 pace, which is about 30 seconds faster than my normal race pace, with 2-3 minutes of fast walking (jogging if I can handle it). Then I’ll head home again.
The run to the track was about 14:10. The pace calculator told me that 400 meters at an 8:50 pace would mean one lap is about 2:11. So I set the timer on my trusty Timex Expedition to 2:11 and aimed to finish each lap before the beeper went off. And I did! My worst time was about 2:00 even, which means I did about an 8:00 pace or better. Yay, me!
Then I tried to run home. Triple-bleh. The run home took 17:07. Still, it was a good workout!
Tomorrow evening I’m doing hill intervals. Friday I’ll do my long run, and practice speeding up for the middle 3 miles. Then it’s back to the track on Hallowe’en… spoooooky.