Running with the lady cheetahs!

"The top speed man has run is about 25 miles per hour; the fastest dog, the greyhound, reaches a speed of 40 miles per hour; racehorses have been timed at 50 miles per hour; and antelopes can go close to 60 miles per hour.

But none of them can come close to the world’s fastest runner, the cheetah. No animal on earth can outrun the cheetah’s 70-mile per hour speed."

This morning was my run with some local lady cheetahs...thank goodness they were running my workout and I was not running theirs!

Between Tuesday's interval workout and the stupid lunges and squats my tail was a little tired.  Wednesday I was able to sneak in a lunch run with the downtown boys and ES.  Our easy run turned into a 7:45 average which was not quite the recovery run my legs could have probably used.

So today I woke up at the ridiculous hour of 4:50 to go meet the CV for a tempo run.  The plan was 5 miles at 7:00 plus warm-up and cool-down.  We got the unexpected surprise that we would be joined by 2:49 marathoner, ESpeed and 2:44 marathon, MY.

I was feeling a little less than fresh, but I was determined to keep up with the girls.  After our 2 mile warm-up and bathroom stop, we started into the 5 mile tempo.  I never felt great.  Just over 2 miles into it, we go up a little ascent and downhill on to a path and we did a Uturn at 2.5 and repeat the up and down, so mile 3 was the slowest at 7:03 (and I hated those little climbs).  I was getting out fewer and fewer words but it was obvious ES and MY were running well within their comfort zone and chirping away.  Lucky ladies...not that they don't work for it!

Anyways, I was hanging on for dear life by the last mile of the run, just waiting to get done and finally the garmins started to sing and I was sooo happy that the hard part was over and it was just an easy 2 mi cooldown left to finish out 9 miles.  Average tempo pace was 6:56 according to my garmin and the last two miles being 6:51 each (no wonder I was tired).

Getting the chance to run with these fast lady runners is incredibly motivating to see the ease with which they can run at relatively fast paces.  Not only that, while I am running with these ladies and dying inside, I just feel like I must keep pushing as I don't want to be the one slowing down the workout.  What a fabulous way to kick off a Thursday- a good run, a pleasant morning for running and awesome company!

Then I headed inside for an hour of stretching, core and weights....good times with good tunes on my ipod.

As a side note, over the last month and a half or so, has been the first time since before the tibia stress fracture (over a year ago) that I have started back with some structured run training.  While it makes me work, I truly do enjoy the sense of accomplishment of it!