Nurse on the Run

Does speed work make you nervous?  Speed work makes me nervous.  I’m not exactly sure why, as I’ve been doing speed work more or less since I started running.  Even in junior high we would do some sort of sprints that I’m sure I would laugh at now, but I promise they were hard back in the day!  I ran all through high school so had plenty of tempo runs, fartleks, and repeats (400’s, 800’s, 1000’s [shoot me now, please], 1600’s, etc…) back in the day.  I obviously survived that, and believe it or not, it made me faster!

Even after high school, I still managed to do speed work on my own despite not having a coach standing around with a stop watch.  Sometimes I miss having someone near me yelling out splits, telling me to pick it up, or just standing there silent if I was hitting my pace.  I suppose there is some satisfaction in knowing that you’re the only one who is pushing you.  As much as I would like to think you all care about my mile repeat splits, the truth is that you’re not all that invested in my running.  (Okay, Lauren might be…Boston 3:10 or bust…)

I sometimes miss the team aspect that I had in high school running (since I didn’t run for my college), as it was a group effort to get through speed work.  You could push and pull each other based on who felt good or who was better at that specific workout.  I wonder if I would work harder and/or run faster if I did team workouts (hello, CPTC, I wish my schedule wasn’t so wacky…), but for now I’m on my own…which is nice when I decide to do workouts at 2pm on a Tuesday.

I decided to take a page out of Lauren’s book and headed out for some mile repeats.  A nice little warm up over to the WSH and I was off.  Per Mr. McMillan, my goal time for repeats would be 6:12-6:26.  Oof.  I was certainly thinking something more like 6:35!  Those times sound fast.  It’s totally a mental game because I know I can run fast, but seeing numbers like that kind of freak me out.

But you know what?  Three mile repeats, no problem.  Maybe I should have bumped it up to four, but it’s still somewhat early in training so I was okay starting with three. 

Splits as follows:  6:21, 6:22, 6:22

I suppose that meets the goal and is definitely consistent if nothing else.  I’d be lying if I said it felt easy, although the first two really weren’t all that taxing.  I like that I can handle it.  I like that it was only a smidgen slower than my 800 repeats last week, and this felt much better.  Recovery between the repeats was half a mile at slow pace, so that was nice.

I’m pretty happy with this workout and think it’ll be a good base for what’s to come next.  Hitting fast paces should give me more confidence for future workouts (and races, more importantly), although I’m still not all that convinced.  Why would I ever think that 6:20 pace would be tolerable?  I guess that’s why you keep repeating such things.

Ten miles…check and check.

is this over yet?

I’ve been doing really well with getting myself out the door to run after work.  Needless to say, the only thing that got me moving today was that Maryland played Duke at 9pm so I needed to be home in time for that to start.  It’s all about finding some good motivation, right?  I decided that 5.5 miles (two lower loops of the park) would be the name of the game and that I didn’t really feel like wearing tights…so shorts it was.  Maybe it was a little on the chilly side for shorts, but it kept me moving.

Quite honestly, I spent the entire run wishing it was over.  As in, I got to the end of my block and wanted it to be time to turn around.  I tried to pull the pace back to make it more enjoyable, but more or less I wasn’t going to be happy until the run was over.  I survived and made it back to my apartment with four minutes to spare prior ot the start of the Maryland-Duke game.  (We lost, I knew you were worried.)

Wednesday, January 25
5.57 miles in 45:05, avg pace of 8:06

That’s fun.  Or not.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGGIE!

Quick, you have about forty minutes left to head over to Meggie’s blog and wish her a happy birthday!  Meggie is my favorite member of the medical side of the Sweat Squad, and I’m hoping that if I mention her enough times on my blog, her crazy IT band will get its act together and let her run again.  After all, I need someone to join me on runs at 8am when I head back to night shift on Sunday!  Plus, those miles fly by with medical chatter, and I’m glad that we can relate.  Also, she leaves comments such as these:

You just keep rocking those 8:10 miles. I’m ALL FOR HIT. BQ in 2012 BEFORE I BECOME A RESIDENT OR DIE? Motto for the year? Yes? When we run, I want to wear matching outfits that are medically themed. Just saying.

Your dedication to training while working as hard as you do is so impressive and inspiring. And, yes, I can attest to the fact that holding up patient’s body parts can, indeed, be very, very tiring. It’s my lifting. No need for a gym membership.

See?  You need to hit the roads again, ASAP, Meggie.  I’ll start working on piecing together our matching medical themed running outfits…hopefully they don’t look quite like this:

…or else I’m pretty sure we could kiss that BQ goodbye.  Just saying.

Do you like to do speed work alone or in a group?  What’s your best idea for the medical theme running outfit?