Just because you can...

...doesn't mean you should. Ha.

Our head coach had us doing speed work tonight from Newport. The plan was to do a 1.75 mile warmup, five miles of fartleks (based on marathon goal time), then 1.75 miles back to the start line. The fartleks were supposed to be five minutes "on" and two minutes "off". No breaks.

Since I've been running faster than a 9:09 pace on our long training runs, I got brave and decided to hop in with the 3:50 group who were doing the following paces:

8:16 on (MP minus 30 secs)
8:46 off (MP)

I felt great during the five miles...I kept up with the group and was able to get my breathing stable in the "off" minutes. Then we stopped for water before heading back. Then everything went to you-know-where in a hand basket. :-)

My legs were actually in good shape; however, I had the mother of all side stitches, my stomach was making goofy noises, and I was trying to talk to someone and realized I wasn't making any sense. Doh. Two hours later and I'm still hurting...

I don't know what the problem was. This definitely isn't the fastest I've ever run, but I guess that's neither here nor there at this point. All I can say is that if it's this painful to recover from TRAINING at the 3:50 pace, no way do I want to know what happens after I do this for 26.2 miles.

Not sure that a 3:50 is a realistic goal anyway given the marathon I've chosen to run; however, for a split second tonight I actually thought about it. The aftermath has been nothing short of humbling though. I kind of want to curl up in a ball somewhere and howl. Yeah, I'm a punk. :-P