Wow, what a crazy day! I started at the gym with a pissy attitude and all I wanted to do was sleep, so I decided to bag speed work Wednesday and just do x-training. There was a class "no limits cardio" that I figured I might as well jump in, because a group class usually motivates me more than going at it alone. The class was really good and wouldn't ya know it - I get in there and the first thing the teacher has us do is running. really?!? uggghhh. Anyway, it ended up a nice mix of different things and it was a better cardio workout than any other class I've been to! So, I added a 1/2 mile of running, because we did at least 5 min of running total in the class. I was feeling better after class and thought I'd hit just a few slow miles. Well, I got on the TM and decided to see how 8:34 felt in my legs. Hmmm, fine. So, I thought maybe I'd tackle the speed work after all. In RW it said a workout to see if you could hit 10K goal pace was 4-5 mile repeats at goal pace with 3:30 jog between them. So, I took it up to 7:13 to test things out. Well, after about 1/2 a mile I hit an epiphany. I took stock of what I was feeling: breathing, good under control and I can even sing (with my ipod) a bit under my breath as I run; legs, fine no aches pains or fatigue. So, then why are you going to stop at 1 mile to 'recover' you have no need to recover - you're fine! So, I just kept on keepin' on.... after 2 miles at that pace (and still just fine, almost felt effortless a bit) I decided to hit it up a notch and went a sub 7mm for the final mile. I finished the last .25 at a 6:30 pace and then I wanted to see if I could run at 10mph. A fun challenge! So, after I'd run 4 miles in 30 min (1 warm-up @ 8:34) I went to 6:00 and ran. I finished .10 at that speed, but I think I could've gone to a full quarter mile. I was done playing though and then went to cool down and finished to 4.5 miles at an 8:34. Total time on the run was 34:41 for 4.5 miles AP of 7:37 for the run. I stretched and rolled my hamstring afterward (I felt it tighten up a bit on the cool down) and now I feel great. I'm still surprised that I ran that fast that long. I don't know if it was the 'warm-up' at class and pushing my cardio that helped me fall into a good rhythm on the TM or if I constantly just don't challenge myself enough and I need to take 'inventory' on my runs to see if I really need to increase the speed or not. Rather perplexed about this run honestly. I still think the TM's are just calibrated wrong :)
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