The Mile

From the time I started marathon training this year, I've been dreading Tuesday's workout. Mile repeats. The thing about mile repeats is that you feel like you need to run hard because you're doing intervals but it's one freaking LONG interval.

After our usual warm up we headed to the S to begin our torture. Run 1 mile, followed by a 2.5 min recovery jog. Spencer told us to not go too hard b/c our more important workout of the week is our tempo run on Friday. I was feeling pretty tired for the workout--I really need to work on getting more sleep. Here are my mile splits.

7:20
7:16
7:29
7:34
7:49

I know what you're thinking--her times sure did slip down over the course of the workout. Let me tell you, I was STRUGGLING on that last mile and wanted to stop and walk the whole time. That was a hallmark of my training last year. On the last intervals, I would almost always quit part-way through. The worst part about that is that according to what I read in Runners World and other running magazines, those last intervals are the ones that really count and make you stronger and faster. So, despite the fact that my last mile was 29 seconds/mile slower than my first mile, I'm going to go ahead and be happy that I just kept on running.

On a related note, Spencer always tells us we should jog through the 2.5 minute recovery. I'm pretty good about this but I've noticed, most people don't! I wonder how much of a difference it all makes. I tend to dance to the beat of my own drum (is that the right saying?) when it comes to team training. Whereas some folks run in a group or in pairs keeping up with each others pace, I tend to just do all the intervals at my own pace, whether I'm ahead or behind of my team members. I dunno, that just works for me.

In all Tuesday, I ended up running almost 8 miles. 5.69 miles of intervals+ jogging in between, .8 miles of warmup (from CPW to the meeting spot and from where we do our warm up to the S...so it doesn't include the strides and other stuff actually in the warm up) and 1.29 slooooooow miles to get home. I can feel pretty good about that :)