Superbowl and Speed

For some reason, I keep reading back to my July-August 2013 entries and seeing how fast I was. I was running so much more than I am now, and my mile splits were almost always in the 8's. Why?!

January 26: 4 Miles, 9'03" average pace - sunny, 51°. This run felt great, but I was really pushing it because I was upset by the above statement. What has stopped me from being fast? No real effort at wanting to be faster? Was it because I stopped listening to music while I ran? Was it because I had turned off the vocal queues at each mile, telling me how fast my average pace was? Well, I turned that back on, and it may have made a difference - it may haven't. This pace is definitely the fastest I've ran this route, anyway.

January 28: 4 Miles, 8'55" average pace - sunny, 51°. Another run where I actively pushed myself to be faster, though admittedly I wanted to make the first mile much much slower than it ended up being (8'55"). I sped up progressively throughout the third mile and then took the last mile as a cooldown at 9'18", still pretty speedy. I guess the old adage "To get faster, be faster" is certainly true. I listened to music this time - Songza's playlist "Performance Enhancing Pop: Cycling" for the last two miles, and it really helped. I forgot how energizing listening to music while running is! I've gotten so used to listening to podcasts...

January 29: 4 Miles, 9'01" average pace - sunny, 49°. I didn't think I'd run this day (Thursday) since I had run pretty hard the day before, but this run felt just a great as Wednesday's run. I tried a new route and was inspired by the new-ness of it, I guess. I had no idea I was going so fast. I started at a "slow" pace of 9'26" and my second mile was the fastest at 8'41". The rest of the miles were in the 8s.

Superbowl fun!

January 31: 9 Miles, 9'15" average pace - cloudy, 42°. Brr. This was a cold one. My second mile was the fastest at 8'48", and the rest of the miles were in the high 9s, except for the last mile, which was at 8'57". What has happened to me?! I actually tried to actively make this a slow run by listening to podcasts but still managed to be more than 15 seconds faster per mile than last week's long run. Maybe running fast for most of the week has really helped.

Total Miles for January 25-31: 21 miles, an 11% increase from last week.

Our group on Superbowl Sunday

It was clearly bothering me that I'm so much slower than I was in 2013. I think I really enjoy running 3-4 days a week. 5 is just a little bit too much for me to handle right now, at least until I build some decent mileage. I like focusing on speed (it makes the runs go by quicker, after all!).

One thing I really wish would stop happening is for cars to stop honking at me as I run by. I know I'm not in the way, I know they aren't honking at anyone else (it always happens right as they pass me), and sometimes it's two short distinct beeps and sometimes it's one longer beep, but it's unnecessary and frankly, a form of harassment that needs to stop. I have as much of a right as anybody to run on the sidewalk, safely, and it isn't right for anyone to honk at a woman attempting to exercise. I don't care if they're actually doing it for encouragement - it's not, at all.

Anyway. I had a great week - it was filled with sunny, fast runs and it ended (started?) with hanging out with great friends. Even though we ended up losing (1 yard...!), I still had a blast hanging out with everybody.

Recognize someone? :D

Some really awesome things with theatre are happening with me, which I'll announce when I can! Basically, I've had some really stellar auditions and I can't wait for the summer. :D In the meantime, the play I'm in, Death By Chocolate, has been really fun. We open in two and a half weeks!

We'll see if I can keep up with running - but since I'm not training for anything specific right now, I think my maximum might be around 20 miles a week. It's quite a struggle to get any more, unfortunately. I honestly can't believe I ran 9 miles last Saturday! Right now I think I might focus a little more on dancing and singing... we'll see.

What's your miles-per-week "sweet spot"?