FEELING BETTER

Intervals from Katie. Walked between intervals and cut out the final 200 sprint, otherwise completed!

Well, I'm happy to report my legs and knees are feeling better. I'm pretty sure it will happen again but for the moment we are full speed ahead. Now that I have my legs back, I need my motivation back. That has been lacking.

My first run back after that 3 miler that crippled me was a five mile run with Matt on Wednesday night. We both weren't going to make PRC in time so we decided to meet up at his house a little later and do the run. We ran a little further than I wanted to go but I decided to just go ahead and do it. I'm happy to report it went really well. We weren't going very fast, about 9:30/mile, but my legs responded nicely. It was raining and dark, so it kind of sucked, but it was nice to have a buddy at least. These days there was no way I would have ran that by myself.

Thursday after the run my legs felt fine, no ill effects from the run the night before. So after giving them the day off, I decided on Friday to do speedwork. It was still wet and cold outside, so I leaned toward doing it inside at the gym. For some reason intervals on the treadmill sounded somewhat fun, so I had Katie at Runs For Cookies give me a workout. She was nice enough to draw one up and tailor it to my speed and distance.

When I first looked at it I thought there was no way I could actually do the speeds on there, but I decided to give it a try anyways. I didn't want to overdo it with my legs still on the mend, so the total workout was just under 3.5 miles with warm up (10:15/mile for a half mile) and warm down (walk until I hit 30 minutes total). I also skipped the final 200 meter sprint because it sounded like a recipe for a pulled hammy. In addition, I also walked between each interval instead of hopping off the treadmill.

Anyways, I did it! Considering whenever I have done 400s before a 6:12 pace was my fastest, the fact I did both of the 400m intervals at that speed was pretty good. The 600m and 800m intervals didn't provide too much relief, done at 6:21 and 6:30 respectively, but did feel easier than the 400m. I'd even say I got into somewhat of a groove on the 800s... after really wondering if I could finish them 30 seconds in, I settled in and by the end was just rolling along. Still very challenging though. Felt good to finish the workout and my legs didn't hate me either.

Now I just have to make sure I'm not slacking on distance. I was going to run 8 miles yesterday but just couldn't motivate my ass out of the door. I decided if I ran the 7 mile rollercoaster at PRC tonight that would count, so that's the plan. Next weekend I'll try to run 10 miles just to make sure I keep a decent base going.