Wanna go fast!

Usually I do interval runs on the treadmill.  The benefit is that it is super-easy to track your time and distance.  The down side is that you will only run as fast as the belt is spinning, and the belt will only spin as fast as your brain (and not your legs) tell it to go.  If my brain tells my legs they will go 7mph and no faster, that is how fast they will go.  In fact, that's the fastest they have ever gone.  Push that 8 button and the thing sounds like an experimental aircraft trying to take off.  I imagine faltering, flying off the back, and crashing into the wall.

Ouch!

I had 4x400s on the schedule, and it is too nice outside to be on the treadmill.  So, today I decided to run my intervals back and forth on the road in front of the house.  Just to make it "fun" I decided I would walk down the hill and run up the hill and into the wind.  Just for fun.

Thomas ran the first couple with me.  I don't know how the child can run all out (he kept up with me pretty well) and continue talking non-stop, but he can.  He's great company.  My quarter-mile times were:  1:54; 1:44; 1:46; and 1:40.  Obviously, the first repeat was the most challenging in that it totally sucked.  In retrospect I should have taken more time to warm up.  But I was in a hurry with the warm up today because the kids wanted to get to the library and back before I have to work tonight and I definitely can't afford to skip the stretching afterward.  So, yeah.  That first one was tough.  If I hadn't already told Thomas that I was going to do that four times, I probably would have done it once.

But I did it!  And I did it quite a bit faster than I would have done it on the treadmill.

In closing, here is a picture, just because it made me smile.

Happy little tree!