Getting Back On Track

Earlier this week, I ran a one-mile time trial in 8 minutes & 57 seconds.  Y'all, I ran a mile in 8:57!  That is HUGE for me.  I typically run an 11-12 minute mile.  If I'm racing, a 10 minute mile.  Friends have been telling me for awhile now that I'm faster than that, & apparently I am.  Who knew?!

Let me back up & explain how I found myself at the Rose Park track at 6:00am on a Tuesday.  I put on about 6 pounds over the holidays & have had a hard time getting it off.  Mari-Etta gave me the sage advice of 'you didn't gain it overnight, you can't expect to lose it overnight; up your exercise'.  P.S. I've since lost 3 of the 6 pounds.

I was talking about this at Pancake on Friday when I realized that I have a friend in my arsenal who has not only lost weight, but successfully kept it off:  SKB.  So I went home & emailed her & we decided to meet over lunch on Monday.  At Husk!!!

First things first, Husk was AMAZING.  This was my first time there & I was not let down.  We shared the deviled eggs, the veggie plate & the cheeseburger.  Everything was delicious, but that cheeseburger will haunt my dreams until I'm able to go back & eat it again.

I digress.  Sarah is totally awesome & brought her 2013 & 2014 Erin Condren life planners & showed me her system for tracking food & exercise.  I used to love planners, but in the past few years I've quit buying them & rely solely on tracking everything electronically.  I thought about it & explored building a similar system in Evernote, but the planner is what makes the most sense to me.  So I bought one.  I'll report back.

During our fancy lady lunch, Sarah pushed me about my speed & said I need to start running faster.  Then she invited me to meet her the next morning for a one mile time trial.  The last time I did a time trail was a Fleet Feet Speed Session in 2010, which I hilariously chronicled here.  As you'll read, my time in 2010 was 11:32.

I was anxious & nervous when I met Sarah on Tuesday & required a lot of coaxing to actually run the one mile.  I was scared I'd run as fast as I could & still be a 10 minute mile.  And I REALLY wanted to be faster than that.  Sarah was great & ran the 1.5 mile warm-up with me.  She told me to start fast & run until I felt like I was going to throw up.  So that's what I did.  Sarah runs a sub-7 minute mile, so she dropped me real quick.  I turned up the Yeezus, put my head down & just ran.  During the entire 4 laps, my brain was telling me to quit, to slow down, that I couldn't maintain this, but I just kept running.  When I was on my last lap, I looked at my watch & saw I was around 8:45, so I sprinted the last half lap & made it with 3 seconds to spare:  8:57.  Sarah was waiting on me & gave me a big high five when I finished.  I couldn't talk & I really did feel like I was going to throw up, so we walked for a few minutes & then ran our cool down mile.

You guys, I'm so proud of myself for doing this.  I did something that I was terrified to do, I pushed myself WAY outside of my comfort zone &, mostly importantly, I didn't die.  I'm going to keep the track work-outs up.  I'd love to get my half marathon time down to 2 hours (I'm at 2:40 right now).  We'll see!

Thank you, SKB!