A little disappointing

So, my good friend Ed is going to be training for the Newport Marathon using the Runner's World "First" training plan. He showed my some of the information. There is a specific training plan for qualifying for Boston, which of course I was interested in. I was intrigued because of this sentence:

For women 18 to 34, you must run 3:40 to BQ (I knew that, of course!)
Qualifying for Boston is realistic:

If you can:

Run a 5kin 22:40 (check! My best 5k is 22:38)
Run a 10k in 47:25 (Pretty close to check- my official time was 47:59, but we started after everyone else and my watch said 47:30 for the 10k distance)
Run a half-marathon in 1:45:00 (Not check- my last half marathon was in 2006 and it was a 1:49. Now I wish I would have run a half marathon this past summer to see where I was at. It says the half marathon is the best indicator.

So, then it lists the workouts that you need to be able to do to follow their training plan. So, I wanted to try them out. I called up Sarah and asked her if she wanted to try this with me.

Today's workout: mile repeats at 7:02 per mile pace, with a 400m recovery jog between. I knew it would be tough, but I was hoping I would be pleasantly surprised. Well, I wasn't. I did a 20 minute warmup and then pushed the treadmill up to 8.5 mph (7:03 pace.) My heart rate went to 195 pretty quickly. It stayed there for a little while but then went to 205. I stayed there for a little bit, but got nervous. My max heart rate is about 212, so this was getting really close. I decided to come down a little to 8.3 mph and I finished the mile in about 7:15. I tried not to get too discouraged for the next 2 miles. I did my recovery 1/4 mile and the good news is my heart rate came down pretty well. So, I started again. I didn't make it very far. By this time, my legs were shot and so was my confidence. I kept playing with the speed, overall I ran it in about 7:30. (I am guessing.) For the last mile I was just trying to hang on. It was probably closer to an 8 minute mile. I then did my cool down and thought about the workout.

I decided not to be discouraged because I still have 8 weeks until I start the training, if I use this training. I am going to do the same workout in a month and see if it goes better. I thought about my running over the last few months and it has been sporadic at best, and definitely no speedwork. For Wednesday's workout I am going to use the paces that are used for the 10k time I had on Thanksgiving. Then I can work up to the faster pace.

So, I am still looking into different training plans. The good news for Sarah is that she rocked the test! She was able to run all 3 miles at that pace. I am very excited for her.