Muthah. Runnah.

Now that was more like it.

After a few days of doubts, I was determined to have a great speed workout today. On the schedule? 5 x 1K. You can be sure that I called upon my inner muthah runnah for this one.

I've never done a 5 x 1K workout before but Matt Fitzgerald (he of the many, many articles and books on running) recommends them (in this Runner's World article) to train your brain in preparation for a 5K. The idea is to run them at 5K pace so you can be confident on race day that you can, indeed, run the distance at your desired pace.

Simple enough.

And yet, hard.

Well, I did it. I set out in my HILLY neighborhood to do my thing (Owen was home sick -- unfortunately for him but fortunately for me -- so he stayed in with Conal). I warmed up for a little over a mile then set my Garmin to beep at 1 kilometer. I planned to recover from each repeat for about 3 minutes. Here's how my repeats worked out:

1 - 4:11 (oops, too fast!)
2 - 4:31 (nice!)
3 - 4:39 (a little too slow)
4 - 4:26 (really nice!)
5 - 4:31 (yay!)

Then I cooled down for about a mile, running 6.1 miles total.

My goal was to run the repeats at 4:35, which is equivalent to about a 7:23 pace and would get me a 22:55 5K. As you can see, for all but one of the repeats I was able to beat that goal. Take that doubting brain!

I'm glad I was able to get outside to do this workout because I covered a lot of hills in each kilometer, just as I'll have to do on race day. That gives me much more confidence than grinding out miles on the 'mill. And confidence is what it's all about.

Several of you left comments wishing me luck with today's speed work and I just want to give you a big thanks. I called upon those wishes when I was feeling like I needed to slow down so thanks for helping me make it through!

Happy Wednesday!

~ Felice