[S]he Conquers Who Endures

Nothing starts the day better than a heaping dose of lactic acid!! I was so nervous about this run. My tempo's have been less than stellar lately, partly because of being out of town, then the terrible Chicago heat wave and partly probably because of raising my mileage. I put some pressure on myself because it's do or die time (even though I have 13 weeks to marathon). Ugh, my one mile warmup was a 8:48 pace and I felt like I was pushing it! No worries, that's why it's a WARMUP! Met up with my running partner then we did 5 miles at a 7:25 AP!!! Wow! And that's with my water belt (carrying one bottle). Our paces were: 7:44. 7:33, 7:29, 7:15, 7:09. Note that the last TWO miles were sub 5k race pace for me, AND negative splits to boot!! I rounded out my run with 0.5 mile easy, then 3 0.1 mile strides with 0.1 mile recovery (5:37, 5:19, 5:19 min/mi paces). I think today was a lesson on my need for improvement of self-confidence. Yes, I'm running a ton faster than ever before, but why set a mental limit on myself? Now I know where I'm at, and I'm actually confident I could break these paces on next week's tempo run. Pushing my lactic threshold = faster pace below threshold on marathon day (aka BQ day)! :) Oh, and I just realized I crushed my 8k PR from March in this workout!!!