Turning a New Leaf

Guess what I did last night???

I got on my treadmill to do my 3 mile run.

Wait...that's not the exciting part...

As I've said before, I started trying to run my short runs with no walk breaks back at the end of August. Last night I wasn't really feeling the run (am I ever??), so I had decided that I would try to do speed intervals to help things feel like they go faster. I find one of the things I really enjoy about my run/walk intervals is that it truly helps make it feel like the time is going by faster. When you're only focusing on 4 minutes or 1 minute at a time, before you know it it's been 5 HOURS! :) Anyway, so I wanted to keep with my running without stopping for any run under 5 miles at this point (since I conquered 4 miles a couple weeks ago). I decided I would warm up for 5 minutes and then do 1 minute speed intervals.

Here's what it looked like:

5 minutes at 5.0 (12 min/mile)
1 minute at 6.0 (10 min/mile)
1 minute at 5.0
1 minute at 6.1
1 minute at 5.0
1 minute at 6.2
1 minute 5.0
1 min 6.3
1 min 5.0
1 min 6.0

At this point I decided 6.3 was pretty tough and I didn't want to push myself TOO hard because I really wanted to keep these intervals up for 3 miles. So, I continued at the 5.0/6.0 interval until I hit 29 minutes. From 29-30 minutes I ran at 6.5 (I think that's a 9:13 minute/mile). Then, I slowed down to 5.0 for one minute and then at 31 minutes put the speed back up to 6.0 - I left it there until I was at 2.9 miles. I then sprinted at 6.5 to the finish. I finished 3 miles in 32:46!! That is a 10:55 minute/mile on average! And, that, my friends is INTERVALS in the sense that "real" runners use them. Sure, other people may do faster intervals (6.0 being their "recovery" pace and 7-10 being their "sprints"), but the fact of the matter is I did them and I did them while running the ENTIRE 3 miles without taking a walk break. To confess, I did jump off the treadmill for about 30 seconds somewhere in there to catch my breath, but that was IT!

I'm trying to turn this new leaf of being positive. So, this was an awesome run! I was good and sweaty at the end of it and I am STOKED that I saw a 10 at the start of my average pace. I have 11 days until the marathon and I need to really work on staying positive and upbeat.

On a side note - I've got to get better at this blogging stuff. Some posts have lots of pictures I can add, which, to me, make it MUCH more fun to read. But, others (like this one) just don't have any good pictures. Hmm...I need to get more creative or something. A work in progress....that is my life!

And, with that, I'll leave you with a "short" post today! Enjoy!