C25K: Week 4 Day 3

I was in Beast Mode today!  Today was the first time at the end of the run I had that awesome runner's high.  I looked at what I accomplished and I thought, "Man!  I am awesome!"  I went out there today not having great thoughts.  I still haven't charged my Garmin and I was starting to miss him.  In fact, I think I'm going to name him Gary as he is my official running partner and coach.  It was hot out there today, when I parked the car it said it was already over 85.  There was no breeze.  I just didn't have much faith in myself.  Then after the first 3 minute interval when I realized I was further than I was on Wednesday I thought to myself, I'm going to push and see if I can go 2 miles not counting the warm up or cool down walks.

So I did.  Period.  Nailed it!  By the time I was done with the second 5 minute run interval I was roughly at 2 miles give or take a few feet.  I did it by telling myself I just need to make it to that fire hydrant, ok now that poll, good, now pass that parked car.  And I pushed and I pushed and I made it.  And I felt strong!  It felt good.  And I had just enough gas in the tank to really push myself in that last minute of running to make sure I made it to the starting point so that I'd know I went 2 miles.

And since I'm a math nerd as I finished walking back to the Y I started trying to math it out in my head to see what my possible pace was.  But since I'm bad at mental math I had to come home and get a pen and paper and work it out.  Here's what I came up with.

2 intervals of 3 minute runs, and 2 intervals of 5 minute runs equals 16 minutes of running.
2 intervals of 90 second walks, and 1 interval of 2.5 minute walking equals 5.5 minutes of walking.
So I went 2 miles in 21.5 minutes of moving.

I was pretty proud of that right there.  But without Gary my Garmin I just don't know what that means my average running pace was.  Did I stick to my goal of being a sub 10 when running these shorter intervals?  So this was what I needed the paper and pencil for.  Knowing what I normally see on Garmin during the recovery walks I'm usually going about 15 minutes/mile.  So I did my math based off that number.  If I walked for 5.5 minutes at a 15 minute per mile pace then during my walking intervals I went a distance of 0.36 miles.  So that means that in the 16 minutes of running I covered a distance of 1.64 miles.  Plug and chug that into your standard r=d/t (see all my former math students, you do use math in your every day life) except that will give me miles/min and I want minutes/mile so you do r=t/d.  Anyway, I found that I probably averaged a 9.75 min/mile pace or in other words if I had run a mile straight at that average pace it would have taken me 9 minutes and 45 seconds.  What what!

I feel really good about that.  I know that my times are about to slow down drastically as the runs get longer starting next week (next Friday is a 20 minute no walk break day) but I'm really proud that I set a goal to do these short runs at a sub 10 and I accomplished it.

Disney Princess Half I'm coming for you!  And I plan on stopping for every photo op there is if I can keep training at times like that!