I survived it, but barely.

Titling this post was hard. I thought that "$&%# You, Sisson.", "HOLY MOLY", "MY LEGS ARE BURNING", or "RUDE AWAKENING" all fit quite well. But after much back and forth, I decided on keeping it simple.

This morning, coaches Sisson and England were back from 2 weeks at the US Olympic Track & Field trials, and obviously, the speed they saw entered their heads, because when i showed up for my routine "easy Tuesday 16 miler", those plans were squashed quickly.

"Hi everybody, we're back from Eugene, and this morning we're introducing some steady state running!"

On my new plan, 14 miles with a progressive twist. 2 warmup miles, 2 cool down miles, and then a progressively faster pace every 2 miles, finishing with no faster than HMGP (Half Marathon Goal Pace). According to McMillan, that pace for me is a 6:53. I personally think that's way too slow, but I'll take it... especially after 15 weeks of absolutely no "speed work" at all.
This still isn't considered speed work, it's just some work to get us to start adding faster "steady state" paces to our base building miles. Real speedwork starts in September.

Here's how I did: (thanks Bruce for passing me your Garmin splits)

Easy warmup (8'ish)
1. 8:38
2. 8:10

Goal 7:40-7:50
3. 7:52
4. 7:40

Goal 7:30-7:40
5. 7:20
6. 7:30

Goal 7:20-7:30
7. 7:22
8. 7:16

Goal 7:10-7:20 (Marathon Pace 7:15)
9. 7:13
10. 7:03

Goal 7-6:50
11. 6:58
12. 6:55

Easy Cool down (8'ish)
13. 7:43
14. 8:00

BIG OUCH. I was completely dead by end of mile 7. My legs were screaming "surrender", but I kept thinking:

"The fitness is there, I've done this before, just keep it going, and my legs will come back. It's just a 10 mile tempo run."

I repeatedly came back to visualizing Leo Manzano working his ass off during the 1,500 the other day and just kept going.

Once I reached the last set at 7-6:50 pace, my legs actually started feeling better. I also know I couldn't have kept it going for much longer, but I knocked out 2 painful, yet good splits.

I completely agree with Bruce's comment (in an email exchange) about the last mile:

"It’s interesting to me that we ran 8:00 up Waller from TL. It felt like we were barely moving."

It really did feel like that last mile's pace was "2 clicks" faster than a brisk walk.

Can't wait to see how I feel in 4 weeks when we've done this for a month!