Faster, really?

Well, this was unexpected. I was pretty pleased with my times when we first did tonight's workout two weeks ago, and I had no hope that I would be able to exceed those paces during tonight's workout...but that is just what I did. I know, I know, I need to stop selling myself short...

Anyway, the workout consisted of 400 at mile pace followed by 200 at faster than mile pace x 4. Here's how it went down (goal based on 6:30 mile for 3:40 BQ marathon):

Goal Tonight Previous
1:37-1:38 1:32 1:35
:48-:49 :41 :45
1:37-1:38 1:35 1:35
:48-:49 :43 :45
1:37-1:38 1:35 1:38
:48-:49 :43 :45
1:37-1:38 1:31 1:36
:48-:49 :42 :45
If I remember correctly, it was pretty warm when we did the workout two weeks ago, but I think it was probably hotter tonight so I'm even happier about the faster times in that regard. Next week is our last workout of this group. Even though I won't PR (nor did I expect to), I got what I wanted out of this group - get reacquainted with speedwork after a year without it, regain some road speed and confidence about running at a faster pace after a year of slower trail running, and get ready for fall marathon training which begins next month. Mission accomplished.

This weekend will be about trail running though as we head out to the Guadalupe Mountains for our last long, long run before Jemez in a few weeks. Unfortunately the trail race that was on our schedule for last weekend got canceled due to the bad weather. K and I headed out to Smithville around 5:30am on Saturday only to find the sky frequently lit up by lightning bursts. If it was just raining, then I knew we would still run, but the lightning was really scary and made it a different story. We were planning to head to Houston after the race, so we just ended up getting there much earlier than expected which turned out to be a good thing because of the torrential rains that hit and flooded many of the roads later that afternoon. Fortunately, things cleared out just in time for us to head downtown for the Reds vs. Astros game in the evening. Sunday was another early wake-up call since K had us running a 5k there that morning. K won, while I did not have a good run. I was essentially napping in the car until 10 minutes before the start and did not do a warm up (because I did not care). Not smart because my shin pain flared up and I had to ease up significantly...which was easy to do since the humidity was stifling! Note to self, don't consider running the marathon there for time. Despite my abysmal performance, I still managed to squeak out 3rd place in my age-group. I would happily trade an age-group award though for a PR.