Pukeworthy speedwork

Tuesday night means speedwork at the track. This is going to sound sick, but it might be my favorite workout of the week (as far as running workouts, anyway). Yes, it's hard... but it also gives me such a sense of satisfaction when I nail my goal pace. Maybe I'm setting the bar too low? I seem to be nailing my paces every week.

Case in point. Last week, my schedule called for 3x1600, and I decided to do them as close to 7:30 as possible. I did:

7:31
7:28
7:33

Cool. Afterward, IronHubby said, "You could have gone faster." Well, sure, I COULD have. But I wouldn't have been able to be that consistent.

Last night's workout was 6x800. IronHubby told me a few months ago to just do as many as I could before I started to fall off pace. The last time I did 800s, I did five of them. The most I'd ever done before that was 4... so 6 was going to be tough. Once again, I picked a goal pace that I thought would be challenging but doable - 3:35 to 3:40 for each 800 (7:10 to 7:20 pace). I did:

3:40
3:43 (oops)
3:36 (yeah!)
3:33 (now we're talkin!)
3:36
3:38

My heart was racing, my breathing was out of control, and my stomach was churning. I honestly thought I would puke. Oh, did I mention it was about 90% humidity last night and I did my intervals about 60-90 minutes earlier than I've been doing them all the other weeks?

But I did them. And I nailed those paces. Even IronHubby didn't have a negative thing to say when I was done. :)