The way things work

My coach called me her guinea pig the other day. That over the past yeah and a half she has used me in testing out workouts and proving to herself that the formula is simple: You mix in a lot of miles with a lot of hard work and adequate recovery and you are going to improve. Over the past few months I have definitely done just that, and things have really been starting to come together for me, as injuries have not been an issue and I have been running higher mileage at a higher intensity than ever before with the three ingredients being tempo, some form of intervals (anything from 2k's to 200's). Aside from the horrible debut 10k I couldn't be happier with how things have been going. Today was another day that I am very happy with. I woke up this morning and went for an easy 3 mile jog to loosen up. It was a great morning and I didn't feel all that bad on the run.

The workout for the afternoon was scheduled as 2 x 15 x 200m = 30 x 200m / with 30 seconds recovery. The 30 seconds recovery was the thing that sounded like it would hurt, but the pace was only down as 37-39 which sounded like a walk, but coach told me to just stick to that to start and if I felt good to start cutting it down a bit. The first 10 were all right around 36, we were rolling, Joe Cat and I were switching off on the lead for a while and running very even 18/18=36. It felt great, I was hardly breathing. After the first 10 I began to cut it down and hit a few 35's and then right around 13 I cranked it up again to 34's. Then I decided not to take the break between sets since I was feeling good and wanted to keep a nice rhythm. From there on out it was 34's the whole way. I was rolling, it was like clockwork. Okay, 29 done, one to go.

Coach: "Joe Cat you have one more, Ryan 10 more after this one!"
All I could manage was to laugh. I was tired at this point but after the workout I was happy that she made the adjustment. The first one of the 10 fell off to 35 but then I got right back on it and managed 34's the rest of the way and my last one was in 33.

Hearing after the workout from Coach that "36:30 is not in the fucking cards for you" was nice.. I am starting to build up something resembling confidence and these legs are starting to feel like they have some life in them. Good things.

Daily Mileage: 13