Two Good Runs

Friday, I ran my first threshold run in forever. And it was hard. I did not hit the target's I set for the two ten minute intervals (HMP and 10K Pace). I ran 2 miles easy for warm up, then I was supposed to do 10 minutes at HMP. I set my Garmin for 8:00-8:20 pace for this part of the run and I ran it at 8:17, which was in the range but slower than I was hoping for. Then I ran 5 minutes easy before the next 10 minute interval of 10K pace (7:30-7:45 set on the Garmin), and I only managed 8:09. Then 2 mile cooldown for 7 miles total. I really need to work on my threshold runs. My plan for this week's threshold run is to run 2x10 minutes at HMP and to embrace the suffering during the run. My new mantra is "pain is good" and of course, "pain is weakness leaving the body". Of course, I mean good pain not injury pain.

So even though I didn't hit the paces, it was a good learning run and I still did push myself. I just need to get used to pushing it so that I can get faster this half marathon cycle.

I also played around with my Garmin before the run and I finally used Garmin Training Center to create a workout and transfer it to my Garmin. It was great to have the Garmin tell me when to run what segment of the run and it also beeped speed up when I was slow and beeped when I hit my target zone. I'll be using it a lot more!

Then I had my first double digit run since my marathon, meaning I hadn't run more than 9 miles in 2 months, eeek! I ran a 10.2 mile progression run with the last 15 minutes between moderate and hard. It felt good, I average 9:17 pace for the whole run which I'm happy with considering how slow I had been running due to the heat recently.

Total miles for the week: 34.3 miles
Total time spent running: 5:27:48
Average pace for the week: 9:33 min/mile
Number of runs: 5 - one easy with hill sprints, one recovery, one easy with fartlek intervals, one threshold and one medium long progression

Best week of training in a long time! Next week should be even better, I hope :)