Week 15 Recap

Magic numbers?

Something magical happened during Sunday's EAT – Enhanced Anaerobic Threshold workout. I ran 3.75 miles at paces between 8:12 and 8:44/mile. Yes. Me. I ran that fast. I've never run that fast for that long before. Ever.

So…what the heck is this workout and why so fast?

I'm not sure I have the answers for you yet, since I don't even know what just happened.

The workout called for a ten minute warmup followed by three 2K segments at slowly increasing heart rate zones. I started at 160 and eventually made it up to 180. It sucked! Each of those 1.25 mile segments was progressively harder and it was difficult to keep my brain from telling me to stop. Really, really hard.

I think there were a few factors in my favor though:

1) It was 65˚. I was running outside, under gorgeous blue skies in non-humid air. After six weeks of hot, humid Michigan weather, this felt amazing. I know that air temps had a lot to do with it.

2) The feeling of running "fast." I'm not normally a "fast" runner. I've run a 5K in 26:13 which is a 8:26/mile pace. I remember running that race (I placed 2nd in my age group! Woot-woot!) and thinking how incredibly fast and hard that was.

What this all means, I don't know yet. According to the worksheet from my heart rate coach, my projected marathon race pace is 9:23/mile. That's a finish time of 4:05:51. My brain doesn't compute.

My best "Easy" pace for week fifteen: 13:18 (Because, those miles in the 8's were NOT easy!)