Today was my first day back running after the Houston marathon. I was good and waited the whole 9 days as my coach advised. I was raring to go! Our planned workout was similar to my first workout with the group, starting with hills and then doing some longer repeats.
warmup, strides, 5x45sec hills, 3×4:00 at 10K pace, 4x75sec at 5K pace, 5min at HMP, cooldown.
I received special instruction to do a partial workout, which was not to do the 5K pace bit.
We started out, and I was at the front of the pack as we warmed up, so happy to be running! We hit the hills and I was the first one hammering up the incline! At the end of it, Darren said that I should feel free to take it easy. I laughed and said my legs just felt fresh, but I told him I’d ease off. For the rest, I lined up at the back, and another guy in the group (a trainer for the Striders) told me to tag along with him. He said he ran 3:09 in Boston, so we were roughly equivalent. Um, looking at my paces, I wouldn’t necessarily say these were “easy” paces for hills (30ft incline over .12miles)… 5:34, 6:21, 5:42, 5:57, 5:51 (and my heart rate never crested 184)
Next we were to do 3×4:00 at 10K pace. I told myself to feel free to relax, go around 7mm. But alas, it just felt so good to run! 6:48, 6:45, 6:32.
Then came the 4x75sec at 5K pace. I KNEW to truly take it easy for this and just chugged along fast enough not to be left behind. Yet surprisingly, I found that my easy pace was still pretty respectable: 7:08, 6:52, 7:16, 6:43.
For the last five minutes, we were to head out “below threshold” for the first 2.5 minutes, then turn around and really push it for the last 2.5. I was obviously better recovered than everyone else, and was eager to finish strong. We started, and my coach called out that I should relax (sense a theme here?). He said “I know you feel good now, but we want to be sure you feel good in 3-4 weeks”. So I cut my speed.. until we turned around and then I pushed it a bit harder even as we had a nice incline to go up. As we neared the end of the workout, I couldn’t help myself and really pushed. It felt great! This also came in at a 6:45 pace: apparently my body likes that speed. *COUGH-13.1milesofthatwouldbe1:28-COUGH*
In all we got in 9.5, pretty good for my first outing back! My energy was right there and my legs didn’t seem to have any sort of residual soreness. And of course, my confidence is sky-high. So excited about running!
9.5 miles in 1:20, average HR 163, max HR 187.
