Weekend Fitness- Long run and Speed work

I had a great weekend for training. Saturday's are normally my long run days due to time constraints during the week. Saturday started off with a grumbly Brandy not wanting to run double digits. I dragged myself out of bed and made it outside promising myself that by mile 4 I would be happy I was outside running. After I was far away from my cozy bed I remembered that I like to run. :)

I really have missed having a running partner for my long runs. It's motivating to know someone else will be out there with you grinding out the miles and you feel very committed to getting out of bed because someone is waiting for you.

Source

It was pretty desolate on the path that I like to use for long runs, this is not normal. I did not see a soul out until after mile 5!  It was very foggy outside which may have kept people in for the early morning, my clothes were soaked from the moist air.

My goal was 11 miles @ 10:05 pace.

This is what I ran:
Distance: 11 miles
Time: 1:45
Avg. Pace: 9:33
Calories Burned: 1075

Splits:
Mile 1- 9:46
Mile 2- 9:36
Mile 3- 9:42
Mile 4- 9:36
Mile 5- 9:28
Mile 6- 9:40
Mile 7- 9:42
Mile 8- 9:23
Mile 9- 9:37
Mile 10- 9:32
Mile 11- 9:04 -- Still trying to push myself on the last mile

Speed Work

On Sunday I met up with some friends for speed work. I am not great at self inflicted pain so I asked my neighbor who has trained longer and is a much stronger runner to push me through a good speed work challenge. She had us warm up a little under two miles running to the high school track. When we got there she made me take off my Garmin and water because she wanted us to focus only on keeping pace with her and running as hard as we could.

The Challenge: 
Run 8:15 pace for 800 meters recover for 400 meters repeat X 3

The Results:
Ran 7:33 pace for 800 meters with recovery for 400 meters repeated 3 times!! (Woo to the Hoo!)

She is tricky. And sneaky. This is apparently why we couldn't use the Garmin's because she didn't want us to see the pace and slow down. It was a hard workout and I had a stitch in my side for the half of it but I pushed through and I was happy I did. I would not have pushed myself to run that pace alone. I am thankful to have a friend that is willing to trick me into running faster than I think I can! :)