Tonight was an extra "coached" run workout. It was raining. Like raining so hard that we were all soaked to the skin. My shirt was so wet it felt heavy and my shoes were soaked through. My toes were squishing around in my shoes. At first it was funny, but as it started to rain harder and harder I felt like I was getting mildly hypothermic. My hands were frozen, and of course I didn't bring anything to change into. The fleece and windbreaker layers I stripped off early as I warmed up (and before it was really pouring), and they got completely soaked hanging on the fence where I left them.
The workout was interesting though. A 1-mile warmup was followed by a one-hour run (one HOUR?! On the TRACK?! Ugh. Trails, yes. Track, not so much.) broken up into 4 laps hard one lap easy. Four laps hard - well, that's a mile. Running multiple miles "hard" is, well - hard! I lapped some people and got lapped a few times - I am solidly in the middle of the ability when it comes to running at this point, which is huge progress for me.
I was counting in terms of 1-1, 2-1, 3-1, 4-1, rest lap, 1-2, 2-2, 3-2, 4-2 rest lap, etc. At some point I realized I was in the middle of mile 5, which really meant I was in the middle of mile 6 with the rest laps (my pacing is awful so my rest laps were probably pretty close to the same pace as my "hard" laps). And under one hour, which meant I was under 12-minute miles. When I realized that I think I picked up my pace to try and cram in as many laps as possible to drop my per mile time.
The coach stopped us at one hour (or pretty close to one hour - I would say within three minutes of one hour), and if I counted correctly (I may have miscounted by one lap) I ran a total (not counting the one-mile warm-up!) of 6.75 miles. If I mis-counted it was only by one lap, so 6.5 miles.
If I ran 6.5 miles in one hour, those are 9 minute and 24 second miles. Let's give me an extra 5 minutes on that hour and those are 10 minute miles.
WHAT?!
I keep thinking I miscounted (like by a mile or so), but I am really careful about that and pay attention to my mileage. Well, except for that one lap I miscounted - I got lost in mile 3 and forgot if I was on the 3rd or 4th lap so gave myself 4.
Am I really running under 10 minute miles? That's insane! I won't do that in the race as it will (a) be after a 1.5K swim and a 40K bike, and (b) it will be hot, but how encouraging to see such progress! I feel like all of a sudden things are getting better really fast!
I treated myself to a burrito Mexicano (chicken, black beans, hot salsa please, with two cups of pice de gallo on the side) afterwards. I walked into Baja Fresh looking like I'd jumped in a pool with my clothes on, shivering, but no one gave me a second look. I couldn't even get into the house with my shoes they were so wet, and I'm still cold (almost three hours later). I'm in a fuzzy robe, under a down comforter, watching the Olympics, and I'm still freaking cold. And wired. Seriously, these evening workouts are killing me - I cannot ramp down until hours later... Ugh.
I suppose turning off the tv and shutting down my computer would help...
My swim last night, besides that disgusting snot rocket, was pretty great too - we had our usual warm-up (~300 yards), then a 400-yard drill/swim set, then a 300-yard drill/kick/swim set, then a main set of 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 with one length hard one length easy. My first 100 yards was 1:19 and my last 100 yards (at the tail end of the 500 - the coach timed me without my knowing about it and announced my time as I hit the wall) was about 1:24. A five second drift over the course of the set is not bad at all, and to be holding 1:20-1:25 hundreds is pretty darn good for me.
This whole cross-training thing is really working well! I'm shocked and excited about keeping it up after the event is over (although at a lesser pace, this is getting crazy)!
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