Grease Lightning

Whoooooooo Hooooooo!!!!!!

Wow is all that I can say!  I was really not feeling it this morning, and had no motivation to run going to bed last night or getting up this morning.  My girls needed to be at the school for XC practice at 5:40 this morning and I needed to do a workout.

The problem was that I wasn't going to be able to get my 6x800's in early enough to get back home to get them to school by 5:40 considering the drive to the track, the warm up, the 800's and then the drive home just to turn around again and drive them back to the school by 5:40.  If I was going to pull this off I was going to have to get up by 4:00 am which I was not willing to do today.

I compromised and decided I would run a tempo run at home instead cutting out the need to drive to and from the school so many times.  That fell apart somewhat as well when I stayed in bed at 4:30 when my alarm went off.  I changed the plans once again and decided to take them to school first and then come home and run my tempo run before heading off to work by 7:00.

Here is where the wow comes in.

I was still having issues getting out the door, even though I was dressed out in my speedy Saucony gear and Saucony Kinvara shoes.  I finally made it out the door at 6:00 and figured at the top end I would need about 40 minutes to get the 4 miles done.... still not feeling the motivation, so I really didn't know how much of a "tempo" run this would be.  That of course coupled with just coming off of 34 miles in the past 4 days.

I hit the road and started my easy warm up mile.  Once I hit the mile marker I kicked it up a notch to my tempo pace.  I still don't have my MyTach GPS watch so I didn't know what pace I was running other then by feel.  It felt hard, but I was not pushing myself to full exhaustion.  I passed the two mile marker and just kept going at the same pace trying to hold on.  I was breathing hard, but wasn't as out of breath as I am during a 5k race so I knew I was holding it where I should.  The three mile marker came and I started to taper back to start cooling off in the last mile.  I finished off at the 4 mile mark and walked the .2 back to the house feeling really good about the run.

As I walked into the house I assumed I had run around 35 minutes and was very happy with that.  I, for the first time, checked my watch and it said 31:12........ I had to look again...... yup, 31:12!  I don't know that I have ever run 4 miles in that time, in fact I am absolutely positive I have not.  I couldn't look at the splits fast enough.
Mile 1 - 9:08
Mile 2 - 7:15
Mile 3 - 7:09
Mile 4 - 7:40
I was in absolute disbelief.  With all the distance running lately and speed work limited to one day a week I didn't realize I was actually building that kind of a short distance time..... but I am very happy :)

Have you ever gone a while without really paying attention to how fast you were running the shorter distances only to find out that you too had a WOW moment?  Tell us about it.



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16 comments:

  1. Awesome job! At one of our last track workouts, I was totally surprised at what I was able to do. I didn't really notice it as it was such a painful workout until I was review some stats last night. Totally surprised myself and probably did say: "WoW".

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  2. Wow! Those are some impressive splits! Great job.

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  3. Great news Tim, nothing feels better than a positive surprise on a workout like that. By the way, with some of your morning snooze button and schedule challenges, you might benefit from a post that Fitz just provided - http://predawnrunner.com/2010/09/pressed-time-miniworkout/

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  4. Wow is right! Great job!! Maybe I need to stop looking at my watch until the end too =)

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  5. Thanks everyone - now I am looking forward to taking it to the next level :)

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  6. Way to go! I love those runs. They don't come often (for me), but it's fun when you find out you were running faster than your effort level indicated. Keep it up!

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  7. Colin - Thanks! Yea, they don't come that often for me either, but they usually come when I am completely not feeling it.... like today!

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  8. um WOW.
    Im slower than the proverbial molasses in wintertime...but my wowmoments?
    when I actually GET OUT THERE AND GO GO GO!

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  9. Wow indeed! It's great when you improve. But it's also testament to your hard work lately.

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  10. @Miz speed is all relative and I am the first proof of that. It is awesome when you get out there and GO GO GO :)

    @Andrew - thanks! It is especially awesome when you don''t realize it is happening all along.

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  11. I think it really helps to not look at a watch sometimes, because then we have to go on how the exertion FEELS. Does it feel hard, does it feel sustainable, does it feel like crap? A watch can't tell us that, and it's fabulous that you were able to go out and do it all on feel, and not even know until you got home! I bet you were totally tickled. :-) I would have been!

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  12. I agree Lara. And yes, I was quite tickled :)

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  13. Holy cow! That's so great, your hard work is paying off!

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  14. I enjoy reading your post..Keep posting..

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  15. Holy cow! That's so great, your hard work is paying off!

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