Tonight was a promo night at the running shop. Moving Comfort sent a bra fitting representative, a Timex rep was there to answer any sports watch questions, and Saucony rep was there with loaner shoes to take on a test run. And hand out the above beer koozie, which was put to use after our run. Free beer and pizza!

I only ran about 3.25 tonight. The first mile was a little quick, at 9:36, but I slowed it down for the next two, bringing my average pace down to 10:40. But that last mile included an extended walk break while I tried to figure out why my iPod wasn’t tracking my miles. Since I was in Saucony shoes, I had the Nike+ sport pod in a shoe pouch. I’ve used the pouch before … and it was recognizing that it was plugged in, but no distance. I think figured out the problem after we finished. I had it in upside down!

I’m glad I slowed down, anyway … I was hoping for an easy run tonight. Last night was another track workout. Sixteen 400s! So yeah, my legs were a little tired.

On the track last night, my first lap was significantly quicker than my 2:02 goal pace. I wound up starting next to a faster friend of mine and just went with it. I knew I had to slow down to be able to finish 16, but I kind of wanted to see how long I could keep it just a little bit faster.

1. 1:56
2. 2:00
3. 1:54
4. 1:56
5. 1:58
6. 1:59
7. 2:05 (and here is where I thought I was done with that …)
8. 1:59 (uh, just kidding!)
9. 2:01
10. 1:59
11. 2:02
12. 2:01
13. 2:00
14. 2:00
15. 2:00
16. 1:59

Phew! When you add warm up, cool down and the 200m between each 400, I logged nearly eight miles on the track last night.

I actually felt pretty good throughout the workout. And it wasn’t until lap 15 when I realized my legs and butt were starting to hurt.

It’s probably a good thing I can’t make it to next week’s track workout. I should be recovering from a half marathon I’ll be running on Sunday. But if I wasn’t already busy, I’d probably still show up for 18x400s!

(I did run 14x400s last Tuesday, after I had run a 5K on Sunday and a half marathon preview Saturday …)

Yup, Tuesday nights still mean speed work on the track. We’ve had terrific weather for the past two workouts.

While it’s much more enjoyable when it’s not raining, nice weather also means we end up sharing the track with a lot more people. Walkers with dogs, kids on bikes, toddlers wandering around … most of them paying little attention to the runners sprinting by.

Well, my sprint isn’t so fast that I can’t dodge them … but we’ve got some speedy runners on our team!

Last week we ran 12 400s at our goal pace (mine is still 2:02).

1. 1:58
2. 2:01
3. 1:57
4. 2:02
5. 2:04
6. 2:02
7. 2:04
8. 2:04
9. 2:04
10. 2:03
11. 2:02
12. 1:59

This week, we bumped it up to 14. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen since my pre-run snack was sitting kind of heavy in my stomach — even though I gave it two and a half hours to settle.

1. 2:09 (a cautious start!)
2. 2:02
3. 2:03
4. 2:05
5. 2:03
6. 2:02
7. 2:01
8. 2:03
9. 1:58 (I may have been running away from a kid on a bike here)
10. 2:01
11. 2:04
12. 2:04
13. 2:02
14. 2:02

It didn’t go too badly after all!

I’m not sure if all this work is paying off yet … but I did run my fastest 5K since 2005 on Sunday (27:43, third in my age group). Same course, 24 seconds slower — but back then, the course was too short!