The First Speed Work Training

Last night was the first night of Speed Work. Really, I tried to get out of doing this. Earlier in the week I sent Eric an email and said that I'd read that first time marathons shouldn't do any speedwork as it will lead to injury etc. He wrote back and explained why we're doing it, what we're doing, etc. and essentially convinced me that I need to do it. At least try it. So I decided I would go and if I hated it, I just wouldn't do it again.

So last night we were meeting at the store and running a one mile run to the track for our warm up. As I was driving to the store, I was wondering why I was dreading it so much. The harsh reality was that I was thinking how stupid it was that I was a 43 year old woman on my way to go run on the middle school track. And it just seemed "foolish". Then I started thinking how foolish it seemed that at 43, I was going to try and run a marathon. THEN, I started remembering everything about the mental aspect of training for an running a marathon, and how I need to get the negative thoughts out of my head, so I quickly made those thoughts go away. And by the way, I'm not going to "TRY and run a marathon". I'm actually going to RUN a marathon. I know I can do it.

Anyhow, Kathy and I ran to the school, and we did one lap around the track before Eric showed up. He gave us our instructions which were to run 8 laps around at an increased pace, then slow down for 200 meters, and then start the next lap. I honestly didn't think that I could do 8 laps. I wore my Garmin (and again, let me say how much I LOVE that thing!). When we were running, our laps were in the 8:30 to 9:00 min. per mile pace. So we were moving (well, at least for me!). I was really feeling the workout by the time we were done. But I have to say that I LOVED doing this. First, although it was hard, I actually felt better picking up the pace because it seemed to really loosen me up. My back, which usually really hurts in the lower back after a run, felt great. I need to look into why my back seems to tense up so much when I'm running slower. But it just felt great.

My knees had been REALLY achy prior to the run, and I was afraid that doing the speed work would worsen the knees, but actually, my knees feel really good today. Much better than yesterday. So overall, it was a GREAT workout.

Workout stats: 1 hr. 11 minutes. Calories burned = 600. Avg. HR 150, max 224 (yikes!). 5.65 miles run total.