3.1 Miles in 33:48 Minutes!

I haven't had much time to blog about this since we had some weekend guests followed by some lovely food poisoning, but here's the scoop from Saturday's run...

I had a plan.  I've been doing some reading on the Runner's World website about how to pick up some speed.  One of the articles talked about fartleks (haha, I know...fartlek.), which is pretty much the Swedish way of saying what I had in mind anyway.  Run fast while it feels OK, slow down when you need to.  Bottom line, listen to your body and do what it tells you.  There are various breakdowns of this and I decided that since I am going to attempt to ignore the clock until the end of my runs by blocking it out with a towel, I will go based on mileage, breaking everything down into half-miles.  At the top of the mile, I would run for speed with a goal of 0.1 miles or as long as I could do so comfortably, then give myself 0.4 miles to recover and at 0.5 miles resume the higher speed.  Rinse & repeat for 3 miles, with the intention being to finish the last 0.1 mile strong and fast.

My "slow" jogging speed was 5.3, and I had a backup ICE pace of 5.0 so that I could really slow down without walking, but I never resorted to that.  My first two "sprints" were at a 6.0.  I knew right away that I could do better and that I wasn't doing myself any favors by holding back, especially since I was able to maintain it for almost 0.2 miles.  So I upped the next few to a 6.5 and 0.1 miles were becoming more difficult but I thought that I could still do a little faster.  So the last few sprints were done at 7.0.  That's where I probably should have gone to from the beginning.  Those were the struggling-to-catch-your-breath sprints that hurt a little to get to the 0.1 miles.  So I know for next time, go right to the 7.

I didn't have any lofty goals as far as time was concerned - I was more focused on conditioning and just wanted to push myself to go faster but continue to hit the 3.1 miles.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that I hit the 3.1 miles at 33:48 minutes!  I shaved 0:48 off of my last run without really trying to beat the clock!  This made me feel very good :)

The plan for my next run is to start at the 7.0 and see how it goes.  If I'm feeling brave, I will increase the speed for the last two sprints if I can handle it.  I don't know if I really have a long-term goal as far as speed goes...I wanted to be able to finish a 5K in 35:00 or less, and I am able to do that now so I'm not 100% sure about how far I want to push the speed.  I'm not even really sure what a "good" speed is!  Haha!  And every time I run I say this - I HAVE TO get outside!  The powers that be seem to meddle every time there is a chance of that, so we'll see if I can make that happen anytime soon!