Earning It

After that last post, I was a bit shaken up.

Coach Emily made me feel much better.

So did my next few runs.

Long story short, I had a recovery week where I could catch my breath, and then a really solid week this week.  Tuesday I did a run that looked like this:

15 minute warmup
Mile Repeats:
5X 1 mile, starting at 8:00-8:10 and descending to 7:15
Cool down to finish in 1:20

Nailed it.  Absolutely nailed it.

Thursday I had a solid tempo run where I ran 20 minutes sub-8.

And today I ran 18 with my two buds, Katie and Kim (Ana was on vacation--jealous!) with miles 11-15 at race pace.  It went like this:

Mile 11, 8:17
Mile 12, 8:17
Mile 13, 8:21 (included a long but gradual hill)
Mile 14, 8:18

And our last mile was 8:32.  Average for the 18 was 8:37.

I believe that is what you call a good week.

We finished our 18 miles at 9:15am.  Then I went home, had breakfast with the family, went to church, stopped home for lunch, went apple-picking all afternoon in the chilly sunshine, and went to Daddy's soccer game tonight.  I wore my nerdy compression socks under the outfits the whole time.

I've been feeling really strong and good about this, and I'm also realizing how lucky I am to have such a good crew of friends who are willing to run at Ridiculous O'Clock with me and do these crazy workouts.  If I pull this off in October, make no mistake about it:  it is because I had them with me the whole way.

This one's for them.