Filed under: Dealing, Speedwork, The Race | Tags: marathon, off day, running, Speedwork, struggle, Tempo, treadmill
I’ve been doing my intervals on the treadmill. It’s simply easier to keep track of my pace and distance, despite the tedium. Today was a difficult day: three 1600 meter intervals at 9:22 pace with 90 seconds of fast walking in between. In fact, this workout shouldn’t have been much different than last week’s workout.
I don’t know why it’s so much harder for me to run on a treadmill, but by the third 1600, I really needed to be done. I pictured any number of things to get me through it: the marathon, the last mile of Sunday’s 11-miler, people cheering…anything to look away from simulated track on the screen. I did finish, though, and this is encouraging. I’ll need that confidence when I run the race, and knowing that I can keep going even when my legs are leaden and my stomach is squirrelly is comforting.
Food and apparel planning for this weekend’s fun run are already beginning. I’m excited to take a little vacation. Hopefully I can still pull off my old bathing suit.
Today was my first tempo run. Apparently I should eat and drink eggnog, liquor, champagne, Mexican dip, cake, brownies, caramel, and French toast all the time, because the hardest part of my run was keeping under pace. Running an 11:31 minute mile was nearly impossible. I felt like I was walking. The two miles at 9:56 were too fast, as well. I ran the first one at 9:27 and the second one at 8:58. I don’t know what my problem was, but it the first time I couldn’t slow myself down! Maybe I’m faster than I thought I was. Even the last two miles, which I desperately tried to tone down by looking at my watch every, like, ten seconds, were too fast.
According to the FIRST plan, which I’m following, a lot of runners will feel that the assigned tempos and intervals are too slow at first. I also remember Mandy talking about having a hard time keeping the pace down. Maybe this is something common to the plan.
I have to admit that it feels pretty good to finally have this problem, though. I think this is the first time in my life I’ve ever run a mile in less than nine minutes.
