Monday Speedwork

I wasn't going to get up at 5:30 to get to the morning workout on Labor Day so I went to the evening workout. The temperature was 94 and the heat index was 96 when I left the house. I ran a 3 mile warmup and did some drills, strides and stretching before the workout began. We ran 30 minutes of a 0.48 mile loop near the Waugh bridge on the grass with a 2 minute rest between each loop. I was wearing my regular training shoes since they don't seem to bother my foot too much. Sam was out there and I knew that it would be a tougher workout with us pushing each other. Sean told us that we needed to run each one faster than the previous one. We started out on the first lap and Sam led the entire lap and I finished in 2:50. I picked up the pace some on the next one and finished in 2:43 and then hit the 3rd in 2:37. The fourth one was pretty tough and I got through in 2:36. I was wondering if I was going to be able to pick up the pace any more on the last 3. I went through #5 at 2:33 and was working hard. I was trying to hit 2:30 on the 6th one, but came in at 2:32. Sam took off hard on the last one and built a pretty good lead on me. I thought I might be able to catch him on the back part of the loop and I was pushing it hard, but I just couldn't close the gap on him. I gave it one last effort near the end, but came up a little short, but hit 2:29.

I managed to run each lap faster than the previous one. That was one of the hardest workouts I've done this year and I know I definitely would have been running slower if Sam weren't there pushing me. I only finished one of the seven repeats ahead of him and he had a really strong workout. I ran a nice slow 3 mile cooldown back home after the workout for a total of about 9.5 miles.