Breaking a 7 minute mile

I made a small goal for myself to break seven minutes for a mile.

I've run pretty close to 7 minutes on occasion (heck during a 10k I ran a 7:03). But never under it. I was always holding something back for more laps at track workouts etc.

But today was the day and I am so proud. (I don't care if I am bragging. I worked hard. This is exciting).

Today was a track workout: a ladder—1600, 1200, 800, 400

It was pouring rain—all day. It didn't look like it was letting up so we went to the indoor track to do the workout. The plan was to the workout WITH Matt. We're about the same speed.

Gym hair, (mostly) don't care

My plan was to run 7:10-7:20 for the first mile (5k pace). But Matt took off. I was at least 20 seconds behind him. I left him go and focused on running even splits, and as easy as I could (I still had the whole workout to do). I looked at my watch to see I was running 52-54 second laps on the 1/8th of a mile track. (55 seconds was the goal). I didn't look at the total time until the end 6:55:7.

I thought I was running at 7:10. but then again Matt was so far ahead of me, he must have run a 6:35 or so.

And I still had enough left in the tank to do the ladder progressively faster. (Thought since it was an indoor track my Garmin wasn't tracking the distance correctly )

I broke 6 minutes during my second year of running track. So it was something I was pretty sure I was capable of doing. But 34-year-old Sara and 17-year-old Sara aren't the same. (15 pounds)

Garmin splits for the workouts. First four splits are .25 miles, 2 laps on an 1/8th of a mile track. So fairly even splits (split 3 is a little slow).

1600: 6:55.7
1200: 5:06.5
800: 3:22
400: 1:26.5

And then a 9 minute cool down.

Workouts this week Feb. 19

Sunday: Run + Yoga
It was too pretty not to run today. So around lunchtime we headed out to Sandy Creek park to try out the route for the trail 5K we'll be running next month.

We went to the park, bought an annual pass, and asked the attendant about the course. She didn't have a clue. So Matt (the Eagle Scout) took the paper trail with us on the trek. The middle of the trail wasn't obvious. Some of it wasn't even marked or obviously a trail. We ran through a lot of leaves (and I was silently hoping not to roll an ankle in a hole I couldn't see) and stopped about four times to consult the paper. Mile two was downhill and fun (but treacherous). Also there was some steep hills in the first two miles. I kept having to stop to walk :( We finished the trail and it looked remarkably like the route we were supposed to take. (Thanks Eagle Scout husband!). Yay Matt.

Matt actually wanted to do it again. I was dead and didn't. I told him I'd wait while he ran, but we went home instead.

Yoga
I skipped BodyPump and just went to yoga.

Monday: Rest
Took today off. So I could get an off day. Went to the pet store for cat food at lunch. After work I went to the grocery store and then we took Mojo on a walk. He walks a 30 minute mile pace. !!!

I did some scouting on the Chick Fil-A half. It's in about six weeks. What did I get myself into? The course just looks so big. Do I run that far?!

Tuesday: strength + run
I missed BodyPump last week, so I tried to get a strength class in this week. I didn't have to be at work until 8:30 on Tuesday so I tried the 7 a.m. Body Pump. Ugh. It kicked my butt. Like it always does. I didn't even try to up my weight. I just tried to survive. And of course died in lunges. I packed up a few minutes early (SORRY!) because I had to hike up the hill to a meeting. iPhone said 1/2 mile up a hill would take me 15 minutes. It took me 10 in heels. Carrying a laptop. I think I walked the same speed as the East West bus that came up right behind me. I made my meeting on time!

After work I went for a run. I was surprised my legs weren't dead from BodyPump. (Maybe it hadn't set in yet?) I think it was a good run. (Minus a pit stop in the middle. I should drink more water so I don't have GI issues). I tried running some new trails. I got 6.5 miles in. I was happy with my splits. I've had a lot of icky runs lately so this was really nice.

Wednesday: Gymnastics

A lot of people came to gymnastics this week. There wasn't a lot of room on the floor, so I played on the bars. This isn't my best pullover, cast, hip circle, but it's better than last week.

Thursday: Sick Day Run

I had some stomach issues so stayed home from work and slept most of the day. I needed to get in a run, so I went to the botanical gardens by my house and ran 5 miles that evening. (I thought running MIGHT help me feel better? Sometimes it does.) It just reminded me that I need to get better at hills. HOW DO YOU GET BETTER AT HILLS?

I used to run cross country. We ran hills twice a week. I run hills during my trails now and I guess that's not enough. I don't really want to run hills. Maybe I should practice these hills more. Sigh.

Otherwise it was a good run. I got some Strava medals and a course record for running down to the river. Yay! Now I just need a few more. I should run out here more (but don't because of the hills).

Friday: Yoga
I love Friday yoga. Played around with headstands some.

Saturday: Speed work

I always dread speed work. I try to avoid it. I spend forever stretching to put it off. The dread is probably worse than the running. Today was speed work at the track. I was hoping my mile time had come done, so I went to the track with the intention of doing mile repeats (which I haven't done in forever). But that first warmup 400 killed me. Ugh. (I haven't run at the outdoor track in FOREVER)

I ran a mile. And it was quite windy. The winds were 15 mph and were really bad on the back half of the track. It was like running in a wind tunnel. My mile was 7:14. Which I think I've run a 7:15 inside. I was hoping fore more than a second off my personal best. But I'll take it.

I decided to do an 8x400 workout, since that's what was in the Hal Higdon plan for the 10k I'm running in 6 weeks. So I did that and ran pretty consistently around 1:40 with a 200 meter walk in between. I ran a cool down mile just to up my miles. My legs weren't happy. I ran an 8:14, which is good for dead legs. (My quads were so tired after this workout!)

8 angle pose. With some awful form. 

Did you know weather.com has a Running Forecaster?

I can't say it's much more useful than the hourly weather tool, but still kinda cool.

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Lunchbreak 5k

After two weeks of running a lot of trails, I headed back to the indoor track today. It was my lunch break. The goal was just to get some miles in.

I ran that first lap at 46 seconds, which was smoking. I felt fast. After taking Thursday off, I felt great.
I wanted to know how fast I could run a mile: 7:26. I was competing with a walking class and dodging people so that's not bad!

I went on to run 3 miles in 24:14. I let out a whoop when I was done. I shaved off 20 seconds from my previous fastest time. (And that was better than my fastest cross country time sophomore year.)

How awesome is that?

I feel like all those trails are really paying off. Trails are hard and I don't feel like I've run that many hills, but just been getting more mileage in and that bit of hills in the trails, my times are dropping.

Granted,  running trails really hard on my body. My back's been really achey. Everything hurts. I think I need to to go to the indoor track once a week or so because it's not as hard on my joints or lungs as outside. But it was awesome to knock that workout on my lunch break. It freed up my evening, so the husband and I went to get cheap Mexican. After smoking that workout, I totally deserved fish tacos :)

Happy running!