Miles

Great workout today. Bromka and I were going to workout at Tufts, but we were told there was going to be a HS meet there. Since Tufts wasn't an option Bromka and I decided during the day to run it at MIT. I got home from work and Bromka texted me and told me he wasn't up for working out anymore. Basically, he's a huge baby. Bromka, if you're reading this, realize I'm going to beat you by about 7 minutes on April 17th.

So, I was left to workout on my own, which usually sucks, but turned out just fine. Often times it's really easy to cut things short, or get down on yourself when you have to run hard intervals alone. As a distance runner you're used to working out with teammates, almost year round. It's actually sort of funny... distance runners are creatures of habit, and usually very dedicated to working hard and committing themselves to a task, but ask them to workout by themselves (and by workout, I mean run intervals, or hills, or a tempo.... regular training runs don't count) and things can get ugly. No one's there to tell you to speed up. Teammates aren't there to pull you through on pace. The pack isn't there to simulate racing conditions.

With this in mind, I really wasn't looking forward to doing mile repeats on my own. I dropped my stuff off at the indoor track at MIT and warmed up for 3 miles. The track was almost empty this time, which was awesome. I changed into workout shoes, and set out to do 4 by 1 mile, with 2 minutes rest. I was thinking about starting out at 5:20, but that seemed pretty slow. After going through the first 400m in 78, I knew the intervals would be faster than 5:20. I ended up running 5:09, 5:08 and 5:08 for the first three. These felt relaxed (or as relaxed as intervals can feel). I never went lactic, and never felt like I was red-lining it at all. This was exactly the goal too. With longer intervals, you want to be pretty steady the whole time. I started the last interval with sub 5 in mind. I went through the half in 2:33 and said 'what the heck'. I let the last 800 go a little (ran 2:22) and finished in 4:55. Even this didn't feel too difficult. I cooled down 3 miles and ate a delicious (as always) Super Chicken Burrito at Anna's. Totalled 11 on the day... I should be upper 60s this week, and may even crack 70.

This workout was really encouraging. I may actually take a crack at my 5k p.r. this indoor season. I can't die with my 5k p.r. being 15:32 (pathetic, I know...) from all the way back in my freshmen year. I also can't die having never beaten Super Mario 3 and Super Contra for regular Nintendo. The replacement 72 pin connector for the Nintendo came today, so we now have a Nintendo which works perfectly well.... but more on that tomorrow.