Time to start working again

You might remember when you were a student after winter break was over you were still in vacation mood in March. Well, at least it is like that with me. Winter vacation when I do not do any school work and that goes on until March when I usually get slapped in the face with midterms...

I have been in this running "vacation" mode for a while now. Past 2 months have been only easy runs, building up mileage. And I got used to it. And then today, slap in the face to wake me up. It is time to start working hard now! So unexpected, but welcomed.
Hey is it mid-March already. Summer and races are here in no time!

I did 8 miles with 4x1k @ 5-10k pace with 90sec job between. (I was supposed to do 10miles but do not want to push ITB this week).
At first I did not think about this workout too much but as it was getting closer and closer I was getting anxious. I have no idea what my 5k or 10k pace is now, so I decided to use my old paces, although I know that I am no near them. I calculated that I should do those 1k repeats somewhere between 3:50 and 4:00. And that made me nervous because after being in hibernation for couple months and almost no speedwork it sounded way too fast, with only 90sec jog rest.
But I was excited to do a real workout again and wanted to see what I can pull off.
I ran 3 miles and went straight to the repeats. Conditions were not ideal. Where did my UCLA track go where I did all my workouts in shorts and sport bra? Sign:( Here it was 33degrees, very very windy and rain/ice drizzle. Yeap, not ideal.
I was still kind of warming up for the first one. I did it in 3:59. Pheew. Just barely made it. But I knew that the next one would be better because I would be warmed up. Sure enough, 3:54.
3rd one was getting tougher but did it in 3:54 again. Also the last one was 3:54. I used to be the queen of negative splits, today I was the queen in consistency. Better than the positive splits queen, right?
I finished with 2 miles of cool down for a total of 8 miles.

I am pretty happy with the workout. Although it is nothing spectacular, I did better than I thought I would, which is great.
ITB did not bother me at all. But it is always like this. It does not bother me when I run fast, it only acts up on easy runs.
I am also happy with this because I did an easy 1hour bike ride on my trainer in the morning. Normally I would bike right after my run (which is not ideal, I know) but I decided to tire legs a bit before the running workout. So they can get used to working when they are tired. Sure, 1h easy ride was nothing to tire them a lot, but at least something.

I am off to the gym to do few weights and bosu balancing now. Maybe I will skip weight and do only balancing, I am tired!