Hey, running... we cool.

Over the past week I've been getting back into the swing of things, primarily biking and running. I need to get a jump-start on my swimming, but that'll have to wait until next week -- work and still recovering from jet lag has prevented me from visiting the water in the early AM. But in the meantime I've been biking HARD... interval and hill workouts galore. Despite my spill at the hill on Tuesday, I've been biking very well. Last week's cruise interval session allowed me to showcase my recently discovered 24 mph speed on the rolling G-town Rec Loop. So the biking has been going great. It should... I'll be working extremely hard at it this summer to make 24 mph a regularity and no longer a pipe dream.

Running, until recently, has been up and down. Last week was tough. I was tired from running the 18 miles or so with Andrew at his marathon and from bike workouts, so my track workout and end of the week tempo run were hard... felt heavy and slow. I used the weekend as a recovery period. Lots of biking (did a brick, but ran relatively easy).

Last night's track workout however signalled a turnaround! GRC was doing a tempo/marathon workout, but I need speed work. So I went to MCRRC's workout to do a ladder (400-800-1200-1600-1200-800-400) with my pals there. Michelle decided to join in as well, so the stakes were high. I had to run fast! Alex showed up as well, so I knew I'd have someone to push and also push me. My goal was to run 5k pace (5:00-5:10 mile pace) in anticipation of this weekend's triathlon. Splits were as follows:

400 -- 73 (4:45/mile)
800 -- 2:37 (5:09/mile)
1200 -- 3:53 (5:04/mile)
1600 -- 5:04 (5:04/mile)
1200 -- 3:50 (4:58/mile)
800 -- 2:27 (4:40/mile)
400 -- 67 (4:23/mile)

Success! Not only did I run a consistent 5K pace for the first half, I negative split coming back down the ladder. The final 3 reps were sub-5 pace. And through the whole workout I was controlled. Perfect. And Michelle really threw herself back into running after having a bout of heat exhaustion last week (and it was very 'soupy' out... not really ideal speed work conditions for anyone!). She was very strong and hung with the guys. A solid return to the track for both of us!

My confidence in my run is back... almost at George Washington levels.