Michigan.

This past Monday I logged into my RunCoach account to find this waiting for me:

My RunCoach speed workouts for the most part are usually pretty simple, x number of x00 meters @ x:xx pace with x:xx jogs, or sometimes two of those with 30-40 minutes at marathon pace sandwiched in between. In any case, pretty easy to glance at, quickly commit to memory, & execute without too much thought. We don't tend to do "ladders" or "pyramids" other fanciness very often, so this one threw me off a bit.

I posted a comment to that affect and while some follow-up comments were about how it seemed unnecessarily complicated, others were about how hard it looked. I hadn't been thinking it looked super hard compared to other workouts I'd run (for example, 5 x 1600m @ 10K pace, or 4 x 5:00 @ 5-8K pace), but then suddenly I started thinking, "Oh shit, maybe people are right, maybe this workout is going to super suck."

And then I worried about it for the rest of the day. And procrastinated getting out of the car at the track. And putzed around doing my drills & dynamic warm-ups. Until finally, at long last, there was nothing left to do but start the workout, my heart rate already at ~190 bpm.

(Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad.)

(But it was still pretty bad.)

That first mile was supposed to be like 7:08 but I was so pumped full of nerves and adrenaline that my body took off like I was racing a 5K, seeing on my watch in those first 200m ludicrous lap paces like 5:50 and 6:10. It's no exaggeration to say that I spent the first couple of laps in a cold sweat, actively fighting to slow to 10K pace. It was one of *the* weirdest feelings I can remember in a track workout!

After ticking off that 7:08 mile in 7:03 and fighting the mile repeats impulse to immediately slow to the Recovery Shuffle, I thought, "Okay. 8:13, slower than marathon pace. But you just ran a 10K mile so it will probably feel harder than that." Except then (adrenaline still pumping out of sheer nerves), I thought, "Well this feels about right" & then glanced at my watch to see I was running more like ~7:45. Running an interval 5-10 seconds per mile too fast? Not really a problem. Running it nearly thirty seconds too fast? Problem. So again, with the fighting off of nerves & trying through long, slow breaths to at least slow to the 8:00's.

It sort of went on like this. The 1200m @ 10K pace might have been the hardest interval, except it really didn't feel that hard (especially not after doing 4 x 1200m @ 5K pace a few weeks before). And I kept thinking that as I went on the marathon-plus miles would start to feel a little harder, but they didn't, not really. And personally, form-wise, I find running 5K pace easier than just about anything else, so the 800m was completely fine (and yes, a bit too fast, but it felt so good that I didn't really *want* to slow down, #sorrynotsorry). The last MP+ mile (which, well, turned into an actual MP mile despite my efforts to take it down a notch) felt more like a cool down than a workout interval and to be honest was actually more comfortable on my janky hip and knee than the actual cool down miles.

Now, sometimes the running-internet gets a little weird & twitchy when you talk about being surprised by something going really well. So let me just say right now that I'm not barfing all this out there to be like "Weeeee, look how FAST I am and how EASY long, hard workouts are, I run my intervals too fast and it's SOOOO EASY, woe is me!"

Promise.

It's more:

• While this blog is public, it still really, truly does function for me as a training log and I find it immensely helpful to look back and see what different workouts felt like at different points & under different circumstances. This is what happened and how I felt and what I was thinking and I want it all documented in some way that goes beyond numbers.
• In spite of my physical maladies, workout paces in the 5-10K pace range have been feeling easier across the board lately. I have dropped a good bit of weight in the past few months, so that may be part of it (or, who knows, all of it), but it still feels pretty awesome, even if it's not due to my *actually* getting fitter cardiovascularly.
• I never thought 8:00-8:05 pace would feel comfortable, truly like a recovery mile. I mean it doesn't feel like a jog but also it was very "Hey let's just hang out here for a while maybe," and that has never really been the case except on very trained, fresh, tapered legs.
• Think twice before showing your workouts to people ahead of time--It can have unintended consequences!