Great speed workout tonight

Great bounceback tonight after Sunday’s Dreadful, Disasterous, Depressing and Demoralizing Queens Half Marathon.

Had a great speed workout tonight in running class.  While still a tad hotter than perfect for me, the weather was more my style.  66 degrees!  Workout was two 2-mile tempo runs around the lower loop in Central Park.  First of all, felt very strong – no pain or stiffness at all from the half marathon Sunday.  I can still remember a time when running a half marathon would put me on the shelf for a week.  Now I’m able to put in a hard run 2 days later, which is fantastic.

I went with the 8:00-8:30 pace group.  For the first repeat I was able to stay with the front part of the group most of the way.  We passed mile 1 in about 7:47, and then finished mile 2 at 15:35.  Very strong.  For repeat #2, I was not able to stay with the group at all.  I very quickly started falling behind.  I didn’t make a hard effort to stay with the group because I was afraid I would not be able to finish strong.  I passed the mile 1 mark at about 8:15, and was well behind the main group and a good 10-15 seconds behind the back of the group.  My strategy did pay off.  I was able to run a strong second mile, and pass 2 people at the back of the group.  Final time was 16:01, equating to about 7:45 for the final mile.

In my history of taking the running class, I’ve done this workout twice before.  My times tonight were stronger than both of those previous efforts!  In all, I ran 7.3 miles, and really felt great.  Looking forward to another day of rest tomorrow and then back on the roads Thursday…