Thursday, February 9, 2012

Speed Demon

I was texting with my dad early Tuesday morning only to find out that he was going to be in town that evening. As my parents live across the country, I live for these visits. Once upon a time, my dad lived in NYC and working for the same company which meant seeing him more than once a month. Years have passed and now I see him 4-5 times a year. Don't get me started on how rare it is to see my Mom, sister and Mom-Mom. Anyways, knowing that I would miss track practice to see him, I realized I needed to get it in before dinner. I also realized that after a full day of meetings and his plane landing at 5:20, I really only had 70 minutes for the speed workout. On deck for the evening was 6-8x1000 with a 400 recovery.

Looking at my schedule and the time allotted, I realized my only option was to crank out the run as fast as possible. With a very quick warm up, I started my first 1000 and ended up finishing it about 2 minutes faster than normal. Thinking this was a fluke, I let myself take time to recover with the 400. Surprisingly, the 400 even "slow" was now at my normal 10k pace. The next 4x1000 felt very similar. The 6th one was getting more and more difficult, but I couldn't break my streak! I ended up finishing it even faster than my first 5. With a cool down run at my 10k pace, I was now officially done with my run. The best part, I beat my goal of 70 minutes by 5 minutes.

I won't lie that it was the hardest run I have done in years. I pushed myself beyond my limits and realized I could survive. I'm pretty sure, I will not be able to repeat that unless I have a hard stop to meet a parent like that night. Yet, despite it all, I learned that my body is much stronger and faster than I give it credit for!

No comments:

Post a Comment