Glad I survived today's interval training!

Whew!  I went to bed last night excited about running 9 miles today.  Should have looked at the training schedule--today's 10-Miler Training Program had us only going 6, but with 6 x 4 speed intervals at our perceived "10 miler pace".  Since I've never run the 10M before, Coach told us that we should aim for 30 seconds per mile slower than our 5K pace.  OK, that I could kind of figure out.  Running bud Robin and I ended up pretty close to that pace, at least for some of the intervals.  The last one, however, fell on a long incline and I was pooped.  Robin stayed with me, although I'm betting she could have powered up that hill.  She gets to do hill work during the week, while I'm on the 'mill (which has an incline setting that worked for the first three uses, then stopped).  She has graciously offered to train with me during the week, at least once a week, between now and 3/31 (RACE DAY!!) so that I can get more hill work in.  Will this EVER be easy?  Don't know, but I'm not going to stop to figure it out.  Just gonna keep on plugging away at whatever pace I can!

http://runkeeper.com/user/lg1716/activity/68362213

I noticed a major flaw in my current equipment, however.  We are not in a position right now to splurge on a Garmin, so instead I have Runkeeper on my iPhone, along with iSmoothRun ($4.99--the only app I've actually ever paid for!), so I attach that to my left arm with a running strap and it tracks where I've gone, the elevation changes, how fast, splits, even weather, so it is not bad for a Garmin substitute.  However, I got really overheated this morning and needed to strip a layer off, meaning I had to unstrap the iPhone, pull off my outer layer, then restrap my phone.  Very time consuming, and I didn't want to interfere with the intervals.  There has to be a better system (or else I just need to freeze my feathers off at the outset in short sleeves--easier said than done at 39 degrees).  Anyone else run with their iPhone?

Arm band and case shown here on eldest daughter's (much skinnier) arm.

Overall, it was a good morning's work, but I can see where I need more training.

Happy running!