"Slow"?!

My online coach has clever names for my speed workouts.  Things like, "Killer 400's" or "Negative Split" are pretty self-explanatory.  Killer 400's are just that, difficult 1/4 mile repeats, and Negative Split just means the second half of the distance is run faster than the first.  But then, there are the other workouts;  "The Beast", "Gut Check" or "Pain is Your Buddy", all with varying degrees of discomfort and unhappiness attached to them.  Last night I ran a little something coach likes to call "Slow Death".  We'll come up with a more accurate name for it, because, as far as I'm concerned, there was nothing too slow about it.  That's not to say my pace was fast, no, far from it.  It's just that I descended into running hell at a pretty fast rate.  Slow Death involves a 1/2 mile warm up, then running very hard for 1 minute, then a one minute recovery, and so on... 10 times.  I had to run in the dark last night which was a pain in the ass, (and the legs and lungs if I'm honest).  I had to keep tripping the light on my running watch every minute or so to time the repeats.  It's much easier when you've got a coach, or just a friend watching you run around a track and they shout out to you your split times, or some arbitrary phrase like "Move your ass!"  Well, I got through about 4 or 5 repeats, and felt like I was gonna barf.  I didn't, so I guess that was a small victory, but it was not my favorite run.  I must say, however, that I'm kinda diggin' on the speed work in my workouts.  It's nice to know that if I'm not into training on a specific day, I just have to bust my ass for a shorter amount of time, as opposed to, say, having a 15 miler where I know I'm gonna be out there for a while, I have to gear up for the trail, get to trail, etc. etc.  

So last night's run looked something like this:

I covered less than 3 1/2 miles, 3.33 to be exact, in 25:47.  I averaged 7:44/mile and a heart rate of 146/bpm.  I don't have the  info for each individual split, again, punching the buttons on my watch and trying to read it in the dark was getting to me.  Every minute, on the minute, and watching the rush hour traffic got to be a bit much.  Oh yeah, and I burned 351 calories.

Today's run:  an easy 50 minutes.  I'm guessing I'll cover about 6 miles in that time.  I was set to run a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving, but I didn't register in time, and so the price will now go up.  I will go for a run on Turkey Day, that's for sure, it's just looking more and more like it'll be in a race situation.