After two abysmal runs, I was a little nervous to tackle my first official speed work session, both for this training cycle and ever. Thankfully, I had nothing to worry about!

I had 5 miles on the schedule, with 4 x 800 meter repeats followed by 800s meters of recovery. I had a bit of trouble figuring out how my new Garmin worked, since it was my first time setting for an actual workout as opposed to just hitting start and stop and letting it autolap, but once I figured it out, I warmed up for one mile, being very careful to take it slooooow. Painfully slow.

I hit the first interval, and sent some good vibes out into the unviverse. One sweat hour later, I was done with my first speed work session, flushed and exhilerated!

Don't worry, cherry red is perfectly normal for me, I promise.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m using paces based on a 4:30 marathon time from the MacMillan Training Calculator, so I was trying to hit between 8:28 and 8:50 paces for my intervals.

Interval 1:   8:52

Interval 2:   8:37

Interval 3:   8:46

Interval 4:  8:29

Other than the first interval, I was spot on with my paces, even hitting the very bottom of it on my last 800. Especially considering what a struggle my earlier workouts were, I’m pleased with how my first speed session worked out. I have to say, it was difficult but not “Omg, I’m gonna diiiiiieeee”, and switching from fast to recovery made my 5 miles fly by in no time.

Okay, fine, so it flew by in 52 minutes. Whatever.

Yesterday afternoon, my right IT band was definitely a little tight, so I made sure to stretch it out. My legs were noticeably tired, but today, I feel no worse for wear. I made the most of my rest day by enjoying my early morning coffee slooowly, pick up some new good reads at Half Price Books with my husband, getting Indian for lunch, and taking Moka for a w-a-l-k in the afternoon sun.

Tomorrow, it’s 14 miles. Let’s do this.