Intervals

   So today was another pretty exhausting day at work.  Since I am the chief resident on call this week I am technically available for fielding phone calls at anytime.  Unfortunately, last night I ended up getting to bed later than I wanted at about 11:15 pm and it was complicated by a phone call at about 2 am.  Although the phone call was only a couple of minutes long, it was just enough to mess up my good nights rest.  As always, morning comes a little bit too soon.  5:45 am, the alarm went off! 
  After the work day, I got home and was feeling pretty exhausted.  Thankfully, I wasn't planning on a really long workout today and it was going to be more of a short - medium cardio workout which definitely helped with the motivation to get it done despite the fact that I was exhausted.  The conditions for the run weren't all that bad.  As it was 630 pm, it was unfortunately pretty dark out.  The weather was good at about 30 degrees with minimal wind.
   I was up in the air as to whether I should try to do hills or intervals ... I settled on intervals.  So I took off and wanted to try running a mile at ~ 8 minute pace.  I took off down West 1st St and was moving at a pretty good speed.  I ended up finding a good rhythm and was able to keep the pace for about 0.75 miles without difficulty.  After that, I definitely had to work to keep the pace for the last 0.25 mi.  To my surprise, I actually finihed the mile at 7:50.  It was pretty hard and I still have a hard time believing that there are people who are able to keep paces much better than that for the entire marathon!  Guess it comes with practice!  After the first mile I did 0.25 mi intervals as fast as I could go and then walked for 1-2 minutes after each.  In total I did a distance of 2.6 miles in just under 25 minutes.  It was a really good and quick paced workout.  Now time to rest up for tomorrow when I try to sneak in a 5 miler.