As I drove out to the trail this morning, it was a nice, cloudy, rainy day. It was raining as I loaded the car, and it got harder as I drove North, still pouring down as I crossed 360. My initial reaction was one of disappointment, but the more I thought about it the more I looked forward to running in the rain. There’s something so liberating about it.

So naturally it stopped just before I got to the trail, leaving it dry and muggy instead.

I set out to do some one minute intervals, trying to work on my speed while improving my overall cardio condition. Its been so long since I’ve had any kind of decent cardio workout - I’m enjoying getting back into shape, but it does get a little tiring some days. Anyway, I warmed up for a few minutes, then did one minute on, one to one and a half minutes off (slow jog at first, walking pace nearer the end). I did each interval fairly hard, about a 90% effort, and didn’t worry about how fast it was - these are reverse-engineered times taking advantage of my ForeRunner; they’re not very consistent, both because I’m not that consistent and because I was running on the trail (hills, people) rather than a track.

8:00, 7:30, 8:30, 7:03, 6:35, 6:40, 6:07, 6:40, 6:49, 6:40, 7:30, 7:03, 8:00

After that I walked the rest of the way - a couple of short jogs, and some stretching, but mainly walking. I kept pushing myself to go faster until I started running out of steam, then just gave it whatever I had left. That 6:07 in the middle there really felt great, but running under 7:00 so much more exhausting than running under 8:00.

In the future, I think I’m going to try to run intervals at the school track and get some really solid numbers. But for now, this will have to do.

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