I have continued to run faster. It’s not a fluke!
I managed to completely tire myself out over the weekend. My husband and I have started to sandwich runs around our Saturday morning weight lifting sessions instead of saving the run for the end. This past Saturday we ran 1 mile before the weights and half a mile after. I timed my first mile at 8:15, and I wasn’t sure I was reading the clock right or counting my laps right even with my handheld clicker counter. Even if I were slightly off on the timing or counting, it was my fastest mile ever. Ever!
I tried to get Ambrose to gauge his speed by carrying my cell phone with the MapMyRun app going. Unfortunately, it didn’t like him running on the track, which is about a tenth of a mile long. It counted the first tenth and then stopped counting, so he ran for about fifteen minutes, which was probably close to a mile for him.
We proceeded to our usual landmine session in the downstairs weights area, and then went upstairs to do the cable cross machine. Both of us were tired, so we didn’t do our full slate on the cable cross. Ambrose didn’t want to do the full mile run either, so I proposed that we do our fastest five laps.
I was going to go first so I’d have time to recover before hitting the bouldering wall. I wanted very much to run my laps in 4 minutes or less. With that goal in mind, I ran as fast as I felt I could sustain for the duration. By lap 3, I was hurting.
But it was worth it when I finished my 5th lap at 3 minutes and 44 seconds. Fastest (0.045 short of a) half mile ever!
Ambrose then ran his 5 laps. I noted his first split was 1:11, and then the second one took him longer. By the third lap, his time had continued to increase, so I tried to encourage him to go faster. On the last lap, he really pushed and finished lap 5 with a split time of 1 minute. His total was 6 minutes, which I think is a good place to start.
Actually, I hope he stays at that pace for a while longer, while I continue to get faster. I really dig the idea of being twice as fast as him.
On Sunday, I ran a 10K distance, split into 4.25 mile and 1.95 mile segments, because I stopped to do calisthenics at the new outdoor gym. Ambrose ran 2.6 miles to get to the outdoor gym, so he did beat me there and left before me. But I caught him up at the very last stretch of our run.
The combination of the cold weather and running every split under 10 minutes, for my first ever 10K distance under an hour, made me into a blob of soreness for the rest of the day. But my speed is not a fluke.