Thursday am workout

I have to post this out of order. This morning I had to run with the morning crew because I need to miss workout this evening to spend bachelorette time with Melissa this evening. Yay!

I am not usually outside at 6:30 in the morning unless it is Saturday, but this morning sure was chilly. It really is a luxury to get to train in the cooler temperatures, and not something I want to do all summer long.

This morning was the dreaded 1000/1000 workout with Mac. If you have ever trained with Mac for a marathon, you are familiar with this workout, and it probably still causes a bit of dread in the pit of your stomach just thinking about it. We only had to do 1000/1000 x4 this morning, thank goodness.

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of Mac's 1000/1000s, the mental test in this workout is just as difficult as the physical stamina required. Here's what you do....1000m MGP, 1000m at 10k pace. Repeat this 4 times without stopping. It is 8000m total. No breaks. All continuous running around the track. All being timed by Mac. 20 laps. Boring. Hellish. Torture. It doesn't sound bad until you have to do it. Then, in the following weeks, you have to do the x5 version or the x6 version that turns into 30 continuous laps on the track without a break. Ugh!

My pace goals were to run alternating 4:45-4:50 for the 10k segments (7:36-7:40 min/mile pace) and 4:55-5:00 for the MGP segments (7:52-8:00 min/mile pace - or a 3:26-3:29ish marathon).

I started out confused because I temporarily forgot if I was supposed to start at MGP or 10k, and ended up starting too slow. Oh well. The rest of the workout was great...

4:54 (10k mess up)
4:58 (MGP)
4:46 (10k)
4:56 (MGP)
4:43 (10k oops a little too fast)
4:59 (MGP)
4:38 (10k I was feeling great. It was too fast)
4:58 (MGP)

I can't help it if running in the morning is easier than what I'm used to. I felt very fast, so I went with it on the 10k portions. I let the MGP sections feel easy, but did not dare run them too fast. That is not the point of this workout. I felt like I could have done the x5 or x6 version of this workout today with no problem, so hopefully the feeling will continue in the next couple of weeks when we do them.