I Broke 7...

Last night I got home and proceeded to do my exhaustion test for my pushups. It's the pre-week 5 test. I scored a 42, which puts me in the third category again. Looking at what's ahead for day 1, I think this week might own me. Day 1 has 40, 32 30, 25, and then a max of at least 40. If I was barely getting out 40, how will I do that twice? I suspect I'll take longer than the '60 seconds' offered for rest.

I felt the need for nourishment, so I snacked on some potato chips and onion dip. Mmm. Fresh bag of chips.. mmm.

Nothing but the best food and drink goes into this body! hah



I went out for a run just after that.. Probably not the best thing to eat before running, but.... too bad.

I was debating doing a hill workout or some intervals. Since I did a long run on Sunday, I decided not to do the hill workout. I finally decided that I would do a mile warmup, followed by a 'how fast can I run a mile', followed by some cool down and maybe a subsequent fast interval...

Mile warmup went OK. Not stellar. My calves were balking a bit, so I didn't have high hopes here on any sort of good timed mile run. I don't check how fast I can run too often.. The last time was about a year ago (I looked and don't even have the date written down).. maybe about 10 months ago, because I'm sure I had my Garmin at that point. My previous time was 7:32, which I was quite pleased with, as I've never been a fast runner. (I'd never really been a runner, period. Certainly not fast).

One of the downsides of my training is that I usually only do a couple of speeds. I run a bit slower with my running buddy, and only slightly faster alone. My long runs, which should be slower yet, keep the same pace. It all averages to about 9:30/mile on a regular basis. The good news is that I could 'run forever' at this pace. (Until my legs fell off or something like that, of course). I really should mix in some track workouts or something.

So, after my warmup, I reset my Garmin, hit the 'start' button and took off. I was guessing how fast my pace should me. Not doing this too often makes it difficult to judge this. My route was more or less flat.. there was a small uphill, and a small downhill, so that cancels out. I had also found a stretch where I wouldn't have to be waiting at an intersection for traffic, in order to give me a decent flow.

After a tenth of a mile, I looked down and saw that I was hitting a 6:52/mile pace. I was immediately petrified and thought about slowing down, as what good would it be if I ran that pace and couldn't finish a mile...? I reasoned it out with myself and said that I wasn't going full bore, so I might be able to do this after all. And, so, the run continued.

And continued.

And continued.

I'm not used to running at this pace.

I got to about 3/4 of a mile, and I was breathing pretty heavy and my legs were getting pretty tired, but saw that I was still on the same pace, so I ground it out just a little longer.

It seemed like forever.

In the end, I held on, broke the 7 minute per mile barrier, and wound up at 6:50 for my mile. Woot! First time I have run that fast for any sort of reasonable distance.


I walked a bit to cool down, and then proceeded to do a two mile jog home. Calves are really tired today.