Quick Workout

I didn't have much time to run today but I did have time for a quick 5km.  We are having beautiful weather in Carlow and I really want to get out and run in it as much as possible before the rain returns.   I'm going to get out tomorrow morning for, hopefully, a longer run.  Loving the weather.

5x800m Speed Workout???

Another speed workout at the track was the plan for today.  I went out with the hope of running 5x800m fast with 200m slow in between.  I got to the track straight after work with my legs still sluggish and sore after Saturday's long run.

A nice 2km warm up went well followed by a nice stretch and then into the 200m slow, 800m fast by five.  I find these tough but I know they are helping and I'm getting faster, Saturday's run was proof enough of that.  However today I wasn't feeling good.  At the third repeat I decided to wimp out and only do four repeats as in previous weeks.  I guess I should have been paying attention to the repeats because what I thought was the third repeat was actually the fourth and I ended up actually doing the five.  A nice 2km cool down followed with a nice stretch and then home.

When I got home and I looked over the times I was delighted with the run.

1st 800m: 3.19
2nd 800m: 3.31
3rd 800m: 3.35
4th 800m: 3.32

5th 800m: 3.12

The fifth 800m was at an average of a 4 minute kilometre, happy days.  I remember when I started running last year at paces of 6.20 a kilometre, trying to get under 6.  When I got under a 6 minute kilometre I often wondered how could anyone run under a 5km kilometre and today I ran 800m at a 4 minute kilometre pace.  How cool is that?...

Good Hilly Run

This morning was another early long run.  I met up again with the Women's Fit for Life Group and joined them on their long run.  The group is really nice and it is great that I feel a part of the group.  It is much easier to run in company.  Last time out with them I started at the back of the group because I wasn't sure of the pace of the group and ran my own pace.  This time I decided that I would try to begin by running with the front runners and see if I could keep up.

We went out the same route as before, a nice route with 7 hills along the course.  The satellites hadn't kicked in on my Garmin when we started so I lost about 150 metres or so or recording before I hit start, which would have been enough to hit 15km.  The pace started nice and easy and I was enjoying the pace until about 6km.  At this point the group trainer moved up to the front of the group and began pushing out the pace.

From here on in the pace was fast and I was glad that I was keeping up.  With 2km to go I was still managing to keep up with the front two runners and we upped the pace again and kept on pushing.  With 1km to go we got faster still and with 200 metres to go we broke out into a sprint  back to the club.  It was a tough run (felt like a race), my calf's are quite sore as I write this, but I really enjoyed it. I was delighted that I was able to keep going the full distance at that speed, my fastest ever 15km, and still have a good kick at the end.

How was your long run? Enjoyable I hope.

4x800m Speed Workout

Another speed workout done.  I'm finding that I don't really like starting them, as I know they are tough, but I really like the feeling after finishing them.

My times for the four 800m fast were as follows:

1st 800m: 3.28
2nd 800m: 3.34
3rd 800m: 3.32
4th 800m: 3.3

A slight improvement on last week.  Gotta love improvement.