Zombifying my run

So at work yesterday, this happened.

A spontaneous 5K!

I just found out about this race Sunday night. This is going to be awesome!

1. I get to run a race! (Always exciting)
2. I get to dress up like a zombie! (Super exciting, but I may not be able to do it. I haven't prepared zombie stuff yet because I just signed up)
3. I get to do a flash mob thriller at the finish line. (Umm, who doesn't want to do the thriller at the end of an awesome race?)

And now at a 5K

All in all, this race is going to be a fun one. Of course, I won't be able to set a PR or anything. Why can't I PR all the time? But I just want to run a race in my new city and have fun. Also, it's this Friday night, so after Thriller'ing, if I so felt inclined, I could move over the run party to the bars.

I also managed to convince a few of my coworkers to consider signing up. #winning!

On a slightly different note, this also happened yesterday.

Boom! 

I'm just chalking up this run as a tempo run. Notice how I held about a 8:45/mile pace the first three miles? I kicked it up for the last mile and cooled down with the fourth. There's no warm up because it wasn't a planned tempo. But I feel like that still counts.

I guess what I should confess is that the weather was unusually cool and not humid yesterday, so the faster paces were doable. Fact: I even considered wearing long pants and sleeves to run, because it was that cold. But I didn't,so that I would remember what cold felt like. 

After the amazing run, I spent the rest of the day trying out a new class at the gym, zumba fusion. Awesome! I also went to a dance studio after that to learn the moves to the flash mob Thriller. 

To top it all off, I went to Starbucks with a coworker and tried out their Green Tea Latte. Now, I have a venti cup of it next to me in the office. All in all, yesterday was a great day! Here's to hoping that today is just as good. 

Another zombie graph humor for your pleasure

Do you guys have any fun races coming up? How do you determine your pace for a 5K? I usually run full out for the first mile and then slowly deteriorate, which I realize is not the way to do things. 

Accidental Tempo

Normally, I'm the girl who uses every excuse in the book to avoid speed work. While, I know that workouts are necessary to improve running prowess, it's hard to motivate myself to get out the door and hit those paces.

Whenever I see a number lower than 9 for the pace, I start panicking. Hold a 8:30/mile pace for tempo? Ahhh panic time!

Today, I just set out with the bf, Stef, to get in some nice five miles. Since we were both rushed for time, we planned to pick it up a bit more than our usual together runs and shoot for 10:00/mile pace.

I'm literally shooting, sort of like how we were shooting for 10:00/mile pace. And literally shooting as in with my hands. 

However, once I got going, it felt so nice to pick up the pace a bit. After last night's 12:something /mile pace, this run was exactly what I needed mentally.

In fact, I felt so great that I kept on picking up the pace and eventually left Stef behind. (Oops?) By the end third mile, I realized that I was close to hitting my tempo pace, 8:30/mile. I made an executive decision to turn the run into a tempo workout and picked it up to hit my actual tempo pace.

Non-icy, flat side walk is the best. 

I then steadily negative split (What? Who killed and replaced me?) the whole run. It would be dishonest of me to not tell you about the easiness of the course. Since the way to my half way point was on a slight incline or a flat, the way back was on a slight decline or a flat, so it wasn't too hard to be faster than my tempo pace.

Ignore the last interval. I walked to cool down. But negative splitted every  mile! 

My overall pace for the run was 8:52/mile. This was the exact run that I needed to show me that I can run faster during the weekdays and slow down my long run.

Don't you love it when a run exceeds expectations? How do you motivate yourself to do workout runs?