I've Never Done That Before

I love my treadmill but I still try to balance my treadmill and outdoor running.  I do most of my long runs outside, some of my easy runs and some of my tempo runs as well.  I have never done speed work outside.  I have not been on a track since my sophomore year of high school when they made me run a mile.  Yeah, it's been that long!

So, when I saw it was 52F today and I had 1000's on tap I figured I would try it out.  I wrote my time goals on my arm

translation:  8:25/mi so each 1000 should be 5:14 long

I did some quick (and rough) calculations and figured 4 x 0.62mi (about 1000 m) with .25 rest interval (about 400 m).  I ran a mile there nice and slow and then went at it.  Oh my!  1000's are much harder outside as opposed to on the treadmill.  My legs were fine, my lungs were working hard, but mentally it was a lot of work.  Slow down. speed up.  Breath, in-out-in-out.  Slow down.  Repeat as needed.  I walked the first tenth of the rest interval and then jogged the rest.  Even with everything to keep straight, I think I did ok.

• warm up, ~1 mile
• .62 mi in 5:09 (8:17/mi), too fast; .18 mi rest interval (RI)
• .62 mi in 5:07 (8:16/mi), too fast again; .19 mi RI
• .62 mi in 5:09 (8:18/mi), I see a 'too fast' trend; .24 mi RI
• .62 mi in 5:09 (8:18/mi)
• cool down, ~1 mi

So I went too fast.  I was pretty consistent though.  Thank goodness I only had to do four of them; I don't know how many more I could have pulled off.  I ended up running 5.18 miles today.  Not bad for a Tuesday afternoon.