Running To Beat Mark

16 with wife today, we went slower than her MP but it was good being out there with her and even better getting home out of the cold!

5 around the high school soft surfaces, by myself today. Track team had meeting before first practice of the year, so I decided to not wait, (they broke out of meeting at my mile 4.)

Treadmill at incline (3-7) for 3 more miles tonight.  Something about symmetry has me do runs at 7 incline 7mph... 

Tried for a workout today, but snow covered track and my usual grass loop, so I tried doing some 800s on the track, that was maybe a bad choice. The snow is at that hard packed stage where it grabs you for a little bit and just saps energy, oh well... Two warmup then 6x800 was the plan so 2x800: 3:10 and 3:12 this was the bummer! I was really thinking I could do sub 2:50's for all 6. Feeling drained already (should've had a snack) I switched to 400's and got 4 of those @ 1:30-1:32. Two mile cooldown. So a mile less of speed workout then what I wanted, not as fast as I wanted. I am hoping it is snow related and lack of food, but at least I got legs turning over faster than I have in a while, so I hope it was not a total waste.

5 up and down a half mile hill. First 500m not too steep, last 300 very steep (especially for Nebraska!) to make it even better the uphills were into the wind!

Ran for forty five minutes tonight. Tried to keep a consistent solid pace throughout. No clue on mileage, but 7:30 pace would give me 6 miles and I feel I was faster than that so I will say 6 today (hopefully this is not cheating! I do feel that I went more than 6, just not sure by how much.) Legs feeling good. 

Run with track team today, good to have some others to run with. I had to leave early and not get the full seven in that they were running. A high schooler referenced the run as an "honest" pace today about 6:40s probably.

Did not know what to expect this morning. Thursday night I had finally set some workouts up throughout the training cycle so that I would feel "prepared" for the marathon. I decided for today I would see what I could do with a 4-3-2-1 mile workout. Now I still am unsure what pace I could try and run for the race (going to do a 10k next Saturday to start seeing where I am fitness wise). Main goal for this marathon is BQ so I figured at the very least I better be able to do sub 7 miles for this workout so that was my only goal. Last night I did not sleep well, and I ran harder than I first thought I would with the track team so as I said no clue what to expect this morning. 

About 15 degrees and very little wind at the start of the workout. 1mi warmup the 4 miles out and back. Right away I was in a groove, tried for "comfortably hard" first mile 6:30, second mile 6:31 third mile 6:30 and fourth mile 6:28 for a 25:59 and 6:30 average pace! Where did that come from? I was afraid I killed my workout but for the three mile split I ran 19:20 or about 6:27 pace. Then finished with 2 miles in 13:00 (6:30) and last mile was a little long about 1.1 in 6:48 (6:10). Obviously I feel great about this workout seeing as I thought sub 7 would be a good workout. (Wrote a lot today so I can remember that I can do good workouts solo.) 

I think for next saturday's race I am going to try and go out at 6's and see how long I can hold on.

(ready to read how everyone did this weekend!) 

3 more this evening easy easy