Paint me some speed, please

After three days of painting, the last thing I wanted to do this morning was go running. But I did anyway and ended up doing more than I originally planned for. I wanted to get in some kind of speed work despite feeling tired, so I set out to do four quarter-mile intervals. Instead I did six ... and then I tacked on a half-mile interval at the end. It wasn't pretty, but I got it done.

My times for the quarter miles, with quarter-mile breaks in between, were: 1:51, 1:55, 1:56, 1:55, 1:57 and 1:56. These were done in my neighborhood with a few rolling hills. I was tired, but I was consistent. I would have liked to have been in the 1:45-1:50 range, but I'll try them again when I don't have paint fumes lingering in my head. My half-mile time was slower than I hoped, but I was still satisfied considering how I felt. Plus it was unplanned, so I can't really complain about being a few seconds slower than I would have liked. My time was 4:03. All told I ran 5.2 miles today, including 1.1 with my dog.

With a little more than 7 weeks to go to my race, I'm now realizing how important it is for me to get some good runs in with times better than 8 minutes a mile if I'm going to hit my goal of 1:44. It's a good amount of time to improve and stay focused -- it's a much better situation than I was in this past winter when I thought I could just go out and do it because I was still in shape from marathon training. I've certainly learned my lesson from that. It looks like I'll be able to get a race in soon - I feel like I need some kind of tune-up before the big event.

And lastly, I'd like to wish my wife a happy 4th anniversary!


Workouts since last post
July 9: Painted
July 10: Walk - 0.7; Run - 5.2 (intervals explained above)