Speedwork, hooray!

These are hard times...because of snow.
Maybe it would not be that hard if I were like other people and ran on cleared roads. But because I am not like other people, I do not run on cleared roads.

To do my 7miles with 4x2min hard w/ 1 min jog I found a nice road covered with snow. (I actually did 7.5miles due to distance miscalculations) It would not have been too bad if snow had been packed and hard, but it was kinda melting and just blah. So I was sliding in all possible and impossible directions and even with those fast parts my pace was 8:20ish. Hm. But I guess that the pace is not very important, it is effort that counts now, right?

Although this was not one of my best workouts, I LOVED it. Past 2-3 weeks were kinda blah running-wise, I did not really enjoy it (except for few runs on the trail). But today, that mini-workout got me all excited about running again.
I have never thought about this, but today I have realized that I really like speed workouts. They are my favorite training.
Easy long runs are good, but do nothing but easy runs for a couple weeks is not fun for me. Although interestingly I would not mind doing only easy runs 2-3 years ago. This and next week is mostly easy runs and then hopefully the coach will throw in more speed stuff- although I have no idea where I am going to run that if winter continues.

I also had a swim workout in the evening and I felt great. Main set was kinda long and thus hard 4x (250, 100, 5x50), but send-offs (is that how it is called???) were very reasonable so I had enough time to take few deep breaths before starting next interval. I tried hard to use core strength, not only arms. Although I am not sure whether I have any core strength and what it means to use it, I did my best. But as you can imagine it was hard since I had no idea was I was supposed to do:)
I think I need a new swimsuit. I have not used this one very often before I went to UCLA last september but I have had this one for over 5 years and well, it is not in a great condition. I am worried that one day I will find myself naked...