june (ish) running update

I've been back to regular running (and regular blogging!) for about a month now, so I thought I would  review how training has been going for the past month.  Overall, I'm really happy with myself for getting back into the groove!  In May, I ran less than 5 times (possibly only twice).  In June, I ran 13 times for a total of 36.8 miles.  I'd like to see that mileage continue to increase, but I'm really happy with it right now!  I've been trying to run 4x a week, but have also tried to listen to my body (aka knee/IT band) and not overdo it - and I'm feeling great!

Speedwork has been going well, and last week M even called it fun.  (Danielle, are laughing while reading that?)  Here's a recap of my speedier workouts in June:

• June 5: Interval training in pyramids (1/1, 2/2, 3/3, 4/4, 3/3, 2/2, 1/1 minute slow/faster intervals): 3.3 miles, 32 minutes, average pace 9:42.  I did this on the treadmill and my slow paces were 10:43-10:54, while my fast paces were in the 8:00-9:00 range.  I wasn't structured about how fast I was trying to go for the fast intervals, and in the end this workout only  felt moderately challenging (probably because the fast intervals at the beginning weren't fast enough).
• June 12: Interval training in pyramids - same as the week prior, but with the slow paces at 10:43 and the fast paces at 8:49.  This workout KILLED me.  I really thought I might fall off the treadmill and/or throw up for much of it... but somehow, I survivied!
• June 20: Tempo run, on the treadmill: 6-7 min. warm up, 1.5 miles @ 9:20 pace, 8-9 min. cool down, 30 minutes / 3.1 miles total.  Outside/with hills I think 9:20 is a great tempo run pace, but inside on the 0% incline treadmill I think I could have pushed myself a little more.
• June 27: Interval training OUTSIDE!  We used M's Garmin to do 0.25 mile intervals with 0.25 jogs in between, 4x.  Warm up: 0.5 mile jog.  Intervals: 8:29, 8:43, 8:10, 8:41 (with sloooow jogs in between).  Cool down: 0.8 mile jog (until we finished the 2nd lap around East).  This workout was great.  I kind of wanted to die during the first interval, the second wasn't so bad (probably because we slowed down), and the third felt incredible!! Granted, the third was probably the most flat, but I still felt fantastic!

Even though it sometimes (usually? always if you are doing it right?) hurts, I do enjoy speedwork!  It's a nice way to switch things up.  We definitely saw that it paid off between our half marathon and the 15k, so I'm hoping this is laying nice groundwork for our next half.  So, did I get any faster in the month of June after doing all this speedwork?  The plan was to time a 2nd 5k on July 2nd, but... well... I've been pretty bad at running the last week and a half.  So, I finally got around to timing a 5k today, and here's how they compare:

• June 2nd 5k: 31:20, 10:06 pace
• July 10th 5k: 29:50,  9:38 pace

I know that cutting almost 30 seconds off your time is something to be happy about, but honestly, I feel like I should have been able to do better!  There are lots of reasons why this "race" might not have gone as well as I would have liked, though.  First, I've only been running two other times in July so far (the 2nd and 4th of July).  Second, I timed this 5k at 2:15pm in the afternoon on a relatively hot and extremely humid day.  Third, I realized about 1 mile in that I hadn't drank any water yet today.  Whoops.  Anyway, I still can't be too mad about seeing that improvement in my pace, and this is just motivation to make sure my August timed 5k is even more spectacular!