Week 2, Getting Into the Swing of Things

Eye of the Rabbit

Sunday: 7.7 miles including 2 miles @ 9:10, 2x 1600 @ 8:50, 8:50, 2x 800 @ 8:29, 8:30; So the directions were 2 miles at goal pace, 2x 1600 at 10K pace, and 2x 800 @ 5K pace. I got my target 10K and 5K paces from McMillan based off of my half goal. I do not think I am currently in 9:09 half marathon pace shape so the resulting 8:40 10K pace and 8:22 5K pace are pretty aggressive. I went into this thinking if I was within about 10 seconds of those paces I'd feel pretty good, with the ultimate goal just that the pace get faster as the intervals got shorter. Success! Am pretty pleased with the way this turned out given how I felt during last week's 800 repeats.

Monday: 3 miles @ 10:23; Garmin was totally wonky which hurt my feelings. I knew where the 3 mile turnaround was so went by that distance and got the total time from whacked out Garmin to determine my true pace. Days like these I get totally scared about how GPS dependent I've become.

Tuesday: 4.84 miles including 25 minutes (2.84 mi) @ 8:49 pace; This was supposed to be a "hard tempo" defined as "goal pace or slightly faster." Was hoping to stay at 9:00 but managed to go slightly faster. I felt pretty good during the pick-up so am very happy about that!!

Thursday: 10 miles race simulation (6 mi easy & 4 mi @ 9:19 pace); Felt pretty decent this morning! I have to say I miss my daily 10 milers from marathon training (feel free to shoot me for saying this when I hate them in November).

Friday: 3 miles @ 10:47

I am very happy with how I ran this week. I was very fearful of how I'd do since the 800m 9:00 pace pickups last week were so difficult. But now I think it was just "first day back at school" cobwebs that had to be shaken out. I should state that while a 1:59:59 half marathon is a 9:09 pace, I am shooting to run a 9:00 pace. I figure this will give me a buffer against the high chance I will end up running more than just 13.1 miles on race day. So most days I think of "goal pace" as 9:00, but I still feel pretty good when I get things done around 9:09.

Thank you to everyone who entered the Balega giveaway! I will get the results up soon! I'm trying to figure out a way for Mario to help randomly select a winner!