This was a pretty good day. It was going to be a good day anyway because it's my son's 17th birthday today and that is something to smile about. Happy Birthday Lance! As mentioned in yesterday's post, Jeff had me take the day off and do a baseline this morning on where I am at. I left the house around 6am and drove to the track. I wanted the truck pretty close in case this wore me out and I had trouble getting home. When I got to the track, it was fairly busy. I think the Dallas Athletes are back and hard at work getting ready for the season. They pretty much cleared out by 6:20 this morning so I had the track to myself for most of my run. It was foggy and really damp today. The temps were right about 58. My workout was a warm up mile, one mile at 80%, 400 recovery (walk/jog), one mile at 90%, 400 recovery (walk/jog), one mile at 100%, 400 recovery (walk/jog), one mile cool down. I was kind of hyped up for this and my warm up was a little hot. My warm up mile was 9:19. I really tried to go slow and just get loose and ready. So here comes the first mile at 80% effort and the question in my mind is "What is 80% effort?" I don't really run in those terms so I was just winging it. I went with effort that was harder than a normal 5k or 10k pace but I still had something left in the tank. I never looked at my watch. I didn't want to be influenced in any way. I had wind in my face on one straightaway and with me going the other direction. I tried maintain the same pace running in either direction. When my watch went off, I looked at the time and it was 7:36. I had really anticipated being right around 8:00 so I was worried this was too fast. How could I do two more miles faster than that? I walked the 400 and geared up for the next mile. I knew how hard I ran the last mile and tried to maintain a pace that was a little faster but knew I still wasn't maxed out. I refused to look at my watch again. I didn't want to be disappointed if my pace was slow due to being tired. I felt pretty fast and once the lap finished, I thought it said 8:03. It's hard to read the times without my glasses in the dark. At that time, I was really pissed which was probably a good thing. I had visions of going sub 7:00 for the last mile and I figured that dream was over at this point. I actually ran 7:17 and was much closer than I thought. I walked the 400, grabbed a gel and a drink of water, and fired myself up for the last mile. Since I thought I was really slow on the second mile, I really amped it up this time. After 2 laps, I seriously wondered if I could keep up the pace. Any time my mind would wonder or try to give in, I picked up what I had and went faster. At the end of the second lap, I glanced at my watch. I was probably 50 yards past the second lap mark and my watch was in the 3:30s. I was on pace to break 7:00 but I had 2 laps left. I just ran at this point with anything I could muster. I didn't look at my watch again until the curve before the last straightaway. I was at something like 6:30 or so with a little over a 100 yards left. This could actually happen. Time to dig deep. Once the watch signaled the mile was over, I hit the lap button and checked the time. 6:51. Are you kidding me? I have never run this pace for a 400, much less an entire mile. I was very excited. I haven't been that excited over running in a long time. It felt like a big accomplishment. I was beat. My cool down mile was something like 10:12. I remember when I started all of this 2 years ago. 10 minute miles were all I could do. It was really hard to break through the 10 minute barrier back then and now I am breaking 7:00. WTF? That was alot of work to get to this point. Jeff wanted me to let him know how this went today and usually I just send an email. Not today. I called him and delivered the good news. It was much more noteworthy for me than just the run of the mill workout update. I'm not exactly sure what this means yet. I guess Jeff knows and will get me where I need to be. I have no idea how it translates to race speed and at this point, I'm not sure I care. All I know is I ran 6:51 mile today and that's cool.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/269969597
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