Wednesday Happiness!

Oh, the temperatures are beginning to drop a little. It was 75 degrees this morning and the humidity was around 80%. Though this may sound horrible, it was quite heavenly! I've never been so excited for Fall. Never! :)

Nothing could be as tough as last week's track workout. Thank God it was the first skipped track workout since January. If it weren't for the treadmill, I may have quit track for life. But, with that in mind, I headed to the track in a positive mood this morning. If I could tackle last weeks workout successfully, then I could complete the workout this morning, too!

Turns out, I was right! Not so bad! 400 1200 800 800 1200 400 Opt. 1600

Expected Times: 98 5:00 3:20 3:18 5:00 98

The goal was to be consistent with the 1200's and to run the first 400 fast. Coach wanted to simulate a race (where you go off too fast and have to maintain). Probably not the best method, but it does happen ... so, we may as well be prepared! :)

Rest: 1 min after 400's, 2.5 min after 1200's and 2 min after 800's

Side Note: This is the first track workout in which I forgot my watch. There was only one other person in my group ... and I tried to pace off of him. He's usually in a group faster, but it was the only hope I had in running the times I needed.

400 - 95 ... not so bad. It was weird running without my Garmin. I had no idea what the pace was ... so the 95 was a nice surprise.

1200 - 4:52! Oops. We came across lap one in 1:44. I thought we were done. While it felt "easy," I was still worried about running back to back 98's to come through at 5min. Turns out my pacer took it up a notch. I ran a 4:52. That's a 3:08 for the last 800.

800 - 3:13 - Too fast, again!

800 -3:22 - Determined to slow it down so that I didn't die on the last 1200. I slowed it down too much, though. Oh well.

1200 - 4:58 - Not consistent with the first, but I did break my expected time. I'll still consider it a win.

400 - 96

I didn't run the optional mile because my left calf has been pretty sore for the past month or so. It's still sore, which is frustrating. Instead, I used the time to stretch out. Besides, it was "optional" and I didn't want to run a sub 6:40. I had a great tempo on Monday (1 easy 5 in 38:50, 1 easy) and a great track workout today. I didn't want to ruin the workout with a FAIL :) Way to be optimistic, right?!

Either way, I'm happy! I promised myself a duplicate of this past Saturday's 20 miler if I skipped the optional mile (which if you haven't read, you must! :)). So, it's set ... I will have another successful long run! :)