The Week in Review

This week has been amazing weather wise here in Ohio and otherwise too with me.  I have had a great training week, so I'm proud of that.

The two biggest things that happened in regard to training were that I hit a new PR (Personal Record) for speed work on Wed and today Amy and I used a new interval for our long run. I had promised a full recap of the Interval change so I will detail that a  little later.

First up my PR for Wed. This workout is a doozy- Yasso 800s. Which are 800 meters (1/2 mile) at the converted time for your marathon to minutes and seconds, so if you want to run a 5:30 marathon then you would run a half mile in 5 minutes and 30 seconds.  This night we were to do 8 of these.  I had never been able to get the 800 below 5 minutes try as a I might. My best performance before Wed was a 5:25 a couple of times the second summer I did speed work.  On Wed- I hit all 8 at between 5:06 (my slowest) and 4:52 (the fastest). I could not believe it- and I still don't think I can- Amy and Karen were perfect running partners for this endeavor and the other MITers were so encouraging. My Facebook replies to my post about it were so incredibility sweet and kind. I love our running community!!  I felt very sore and tired on Thursday but better on Friday and I was ready to hit my run today.

Today Amy and I had 12 miles on our schedule (since we are loosely following the Earth Day half marathon schedule).  I have been reading the Jeff Galloway book "Marathon You Can do it." and in it he recommends a 2:30/1 run/walk ratio.  I figured since he was the guy who invented the run/walk method there might be something to this! :) So I purchased a Gym Boss to time the new interval since it is so much easier to change than my Garmin.  Today was our first day using that interval for a long run.

We started out a little slower, but quickly picked up the pace.  The 2:30/1 interval felt just right to both of us, and it seemed we could push a little harder on the run and walk a little faster since the run portion was shorter. (We have been doing 4/1).  We ended our 12 miles at an 11:37 average pace, which is quick for us. We usually average out a little closer to 12.  

For my running pals who might be interested in the details, if not you can feel free to skip this part:

Mile 1: 11:40

Mile 2:12:15 

Mile 3: 12:24

Mile 4: 11:29

Mile 5: 11:18

Mile 6:11:34

Mile 7: 11:25

Mile 8: 11:33

Mile 9: 11:10

Mile 10: 11:15

Mile 11: 11:44

Mile 12: 11:36

We need to work on evening out the pace a bit more but overall I was pleased. I felt good pretty much the whole time and the weather was perfect! I think we will continue with the 2:30/1 intervals and see how it goes, but so far so good.  

Then we had a delicious breakfast at Scramblers and now I'm going to watch some March Madness!! Love my College Hoops!!

Run on Friends,

Heather