Better

The pile of stuff in the living room (and my "to do" list) is still pretty large, but my existential angst* from yesterday has gone away, and I'm already feeling better about returning to "normal life".

Continuing the theme of focusing on the positive:

• I had a slow but relatively warm 8mi run yesterday.  Nearly all the ice on the sidewalks and streets has melted and we only got a light dusting of snow last night.  We are expecting more snow this week so that may be the last one for awhile.
• I didn't return to 23098439 e-mails at work.  I have two new projects that are interesting but not overwhelming.
• Because of an unusual thaw/freeze cycle, Lake Mendota froze clear, and I got to walk out on the ice and could see all the way through to the bottom of the lake.  I have pictures but they were taken on my phone's camera so today's lunch time internet project will be to figure out how to get them on the computer.  
• Even though I was tired from not sleeping well a couple nights ago, I had a fun with our church small group, eating brownies and playing Sporkle.  

I'm headed to the gym this morning for weights.  We don't have any plans for this evening so I'm hoping that I make a dent in the mountain 'o Christmas that's hanging out in the living room tonight.  Have a good Tuesday!

* I love putting terms like this into Google Image just to see what comes up.

The Resolution Post

After a long drive down from Madison, we are enjoying Chirstmas Part 1 in Tennessee.  While it's much warmer than where we left, I decided to take a break from running this morning to bring you The 2011 Resolution Post.  Rather than having 10 kind of nebulous goals like last year, I've tried to break it down into 5 concrete things that I really want to do(not feel like I have to or should do) that cover three broad areas- healthy eating, fitness, and my social life.

Now that's some scary kale.

1. Try one new vegetable or way to prepare vegetables per week.  I tried kale (a vegetable I was particularly terrified of) at a party last week (I get invited to some crazy parties), and it was actually pretty good.  Part of this plan is to subscribe to a CSA box from a very local (about 1/2 mile from our apartment) farm. 

2. Have one social dinner every month.  It can be a potluck with our church lifegroup, meeting people for dinner at a restaurant, or making something at our place.  As long as it's food + social + dinner time, it counts.

3. Write one blog post a day every day I am home.  I enjoy writing and I have a feeling that coming up with good blogging ideas and writing witty prose is more a matter of practice than anything else.  We don't travel with a computer so I'm off the hook when we are gone.

4. Up the intensity of my interval training.  I got a big boost in speed when I started doing speekwork at all, but it's time to push myself harder if I want to see results.  I like the FIRST plan for outdoor training, but I haven't been able to translate it to the treadmill.  Instead I've brought out my copy of Training Plans for Multisport Athletes, that has two sets of training plans specificially for speedwork on the treadmill.  Even though I don't ever plan to do a triathlon, this book is worth having just for those treadmill workouts.  Once the weather improves I'll be back out on the road FIRSTing again.

5.  Connect with one person I don't talk to regularly each week.  It could be anything from calling my grandparents or commenting on something on Facebook.  Just reach out and touch someone.

And that's it!  Not sure how much I'll be posting, but I hope to do some reading and commenting at least every few days.  I look forward to reading about your resolutions and exciting plans for the new year.  Stay warm out there!

Holy 11 Below!

Needless to say I ran on the treadmill Monday morning and am coming back for more today.  11 below air temperature.  Ick.  Not only is it cold, but it's still hard to get around here.  The chemical de-icer they put on the roads doesn't work if it's below 15F, so crossing the road in our apartment complex to catch the bus is like walking through a giant dirt-flavored slushy.  How many days until I leave for the Southeast?*

The upside of being stuck at home all weekend is that I got a lot of Christmas stuff done.  

10lbs of fudge was made:

And wrapped to be give out:

Ornaments were finished:

And presents were wrapped:

I got 30+ Christmas cards in the mail and then 10 back in the mail yesterday because I didn't include enough postage.

I only have a few things left to do/wrap and then it's time to sit back and coast into the holidays.

Stay warm out there!

*And I don't want to hear any complaints about "how cold" it is down there.  30F is almost 40 degrees warmer than it is here.  If it were 30F here I'd go lay out in my bathing suit and try to raise my vitamin D levels, which are also probably hovering around -11.  

Flexibility

I think I only did one of my workouts on the day it was planned this week, and that was strength training on Tuesday.  I had to do my tempo run on Monday because my GPS batteries died, strength on Tuesday, then I did my interval run on Wednesday when it was really cold and windy rather than waiting until Thursday because I kind of wanted to get it over with, then Thursday I overslept but had time to get everything together to go to the gym so I did that, and now it's supposed to snow a lot tonight/Saturday morning so I got up early and did my long run today.  All I have to do tomorrow is wake up whenever I want and run however long I feel like (but probably with the grippers- see right). 

I was a little disappointed with the way the two runs I got times for went.  I was slow on all my intervals on Wednesday, and although I started out strong this morning, my paces slipped to around 8:20 toward the end of the run.  I'll give myself credit because part of it was that it was cold and early and windy (at least on Wednesday), but part of it is that I sometimes let my mind wander when I do speedwork, and it makes me slow down.  Another part of the problem with these long tempo runs is figuring out how to pace myself.  I knew I needed to slow down a bit from how fast I went last week, but, as I feared, when I slowed down I did it by too much.  Hopefully figuring out the right pacing will get easier as I do more of these workouts.*

And... change topics.

In my last post I wrote that I was graciously invited by Sarah to join her stranded on a tropical isle.  Hopefully this one**

Now it is my turn to pass on the invitation to some others.  Karyn, Kerri, Jamie, Linda, J+A, Jessica and Daniel, will you join me?***

Here are your questions.  I'm going to answer them, too, because I feel like it.

1. What is something you learned as a child that you will never forget?  What's something that you need to remember now that you always forget?

I will always remember the opening chorus to the Thanksgiving play I was in in 4th grade.  I will never remember the units for blood elements and inflammatory markers.  You are glad I'm not your doctor.

2. What is your favorite Christmas/winter solstice song?  What is your least favorite Christmas/winter solstice song?

I enjoy all Christmas songs composed in a minor key.****  I tire of the rest very quickly. 

3. What is your favorite color?

Purple.

4. Real Christmas tree or fake?

I love the smell of real, but it bothers all my nerd allergies.  That's why I buy stock in Zyrtec.

5. What is the most interesting wildlife you've seen while running or just out and about?

Coyotes, a roadrunner (both in NM), and the turkeys that live in our apartment complex (really)

6. What is something you'd love to be good at but have no talent for?

Singing or anything artistic or that requires spacial reasoning skills.

7. What is something interesting that happened the year you were born?

Thriller was released.


*And hopefully the weather will continue to cooperate so I can do more of these workouts without too much ice skating.

** The deal sounded all the better this morning as it was so cold my left eye started freezing shut while I was running.

***And anyone else, too.

****Oh yeah, and Pretty Paper sung by Willy Nelson.  That will always have a special place in my heart.

Berbee Derby

I'm thankful for so many things that getting into detail would make me late for the race this morning :).  Right now it's not supposed to be as cold as I'd feared (read: I need to sneak back in the bedroom and grab my capris rather than wearing my hard core tights from earlier in the week).  We are not going anywhere or doing anything special for Thanksgiving so I'll probably be back to on give a race recap and some "I'm so thankful" gushing.  You know you guys like that stuff :).

I don't really have any goals for this race.  I ran the 10k two years ago, and I remember the course was a short uphill followed by a long downhill followed by a hard core uphill at the end.  I ran a heartbreaking 50:01 that year (on my quest to break 50 min in the 10k).  This year I have two sub-50 10k, and it would be cool to run a third.  My B goal is to come back with my fingers and toes in tact after having to stand around outside.  It's hard to make Thanksgiving dinner with gangrene :)

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

One more day until Thanksgiving!

Work has been super busy this week getting ready to submit abstracts for an important conference.  They aren't due until next Friday, but our bosses will be gone next week so there's been a flurry of activity each day.  Normally my job is pretty relaxed, and it's exhausting to think hard and apply yourself all day!

Anyway, I'm feeling more relaxed about everything going into today, and I'm looking forward to the long weekend.  It was cold yesterday and is going to be even colder tomorrow.  Yesterday was the first day I cut my run short (I did 7mi instead of a MLR of 9.5 that I had planned) because my hands were soooooo cold.  I dressed for 23, which is what The Weather Channel said it was, but they didn't mention the insane wind blowing off the lake that made it feel like it was in the single digits.  Had I brought along some hot hands I would have been okay, but after an hour my hands were blocks of ice.  Not the kind of "feel the burn" I'm going for.

For all the people who were running in 90+ degree weather this summer-
at least you don't have to dress like this now.  And this was a bit under-dressed.

I glow!

 Right now the forecast for the Berbee Derby- which is always cold- is 29- feels like 18- which is not too bad.  It's never fun to have to stand around and wait for it to get started, but at least there won't be big ice patches on the course like the first year I ran it.  I'm also planning to pick up my packet today so I can just sit in the car and read until I have to get out and run around to warm up.  Unless the weather is truly horrible I'm planning to run it.  10 races in 2010- woot!

Sticking to my diet has been pretty good.  Monday we had pre-Thanksgiving with our young couples group from church, and I decided to go with the flow and eat what was there.  It was tasty, of course, but it actually helped solidify my desire to stick to my plan.  It helped me see that I really do feel better after a meal sans grains and dairy than when eat them.

 But it's always fun to share a meal (and a horrible first episode of Skating with the Stars) with friends.

 Happy Thanksgiving eve!  

Happy Valentines Day

Cute, eh? This was my Valentines card from D that I got last night because he's not so great at keeping secrets :). For two people who aren't into holidays that much, I feel like we're "doing" a lot for one of the sillier ones. It's more like we decided to do some things that happened to fall on Valentines day rather than we tried to make plans for today. First we have church and our membership interviews (YAY for being almost done with membership class). Then we're going to see the Peking Acrobats at 3pm and to Monty's Blue Plate Diner for dinner and desert.

I also want to send a special birthday shout out to my brother-in-law J who is 25 (I think...) today.

Yesterday was filled with phone conversation, reading, sleep, cleaning out my sewing/craft stuff (which has been on my to-do list for AGES), and speed skating (crazy wipe out in the finals!).

Have a great Sunday all.

Sunlight is highly underrated

I just got back from my first warm, sunny run in what feels like a very long time. I'm at my in-laws in TN, and, I can say that run was worth the 14.5 hour drive down here yesterday. I was only planning to do 5mi and ended up doing 7. Since I'm restricted to a loop that's slightly less than a half mile, that's saying something.

Otherwise we're just relaxing here. We'll do church at 5pm, dinner, and then gifts!

1-1-1-1-1-1-1!

Last day of work. Woot!

It's snowing pretty good outside right now, but "snow showers" today should turn into "scattered snow showers" tomorrow, and we should be in TN before the "wintry mix" hits on Thursday. Hopefully we won't have much trouble with the weather on our drive.

I'm hopping on the treadmill this morning for 5mi??? Something like that. Running and all other exercise will be on a somewhat irregular basis for the next week and a half. I definitely will run and continue with some yoga and push-ups, but I'm looking forward to taking a little break from working out first thing in the morning, every morning.

That's my thing... I'm just so ready to chill out for awhile. I have a couple odds and ends to do at work today. We got page proofs for a paper yesterday, so I spend the entire afternoon checking numbers in tables, one by one. Glad that didn't come today! Then it's packing and sushi to celebrate the end of a very tough semester for D.

Posting will be sporadic over the next week and a half, but hopefully I'll get some year-in-review, new year's resolution, running entries up.

Safe travels to all.

Fun, fun, fun

First I want to say I'm sorry about my bad attitude about Christmas cookies yesterday. That was a pretty dumb thing to go on and on about. Life's too short, right?

In fact, Thursday's ugly sweater party was fun. This was the Christmas party for youth group leaders. We didn't wear ugly sweaters, but some people did. Mostly it was guys who borrowed something from their mother's closet. So they weren't necessarily ugly... just sequins are out of place on a man in his late 20's. It was catered by Qdoba (mmmmm) and held in the house of the Badger's Women's hockey coach (who was also on the Miracle on Ice team in 1980). It was pretty cool to see all their sports memorabilia up on the walls. Both he and his wife are hard-core triathletes now.

The funny thing I found out at the party was that my sophomore group actually won the gingerbread house decorating contest. This makes us undefeated (as far as I can tell) in youth group competitions this fall. We won the song lyric contest with "Going to Aunt Claire's" (to the tune of Livin on a Prayer), the Amazing Race competition (with some generous help from me at the event I was running), and now the gingerbread competition. We tried to make a real house, but the roof collapsed, and the kids decided to make it a gingerbread mobile home. They used icing lids for wheels, and I think one got a satellite dish on the top. Pretty funny. I guess it was creative enough to win the contest. There were a lot of other teams that had much nicer looking products.

Last night we went over to a friend's house to play games and drink Christmas-themed adult drinks. I had a candy cane martini that immediately had to be diluted with an equal part of water so I didn't spend the evening asleep in front of the Christmas tree! In any case there was good conversation and it was a lot of fun. The couple who hosted the party are also into singing/playing bluegrass music and want to play with D sometime, which would be nice for him because it's not often he gets that opportunity.

We didn't leave until 11:30 and I didn't get to sleep until 12:30 (had to finish Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, haha) and wake up until 7:30 this morning. Unheard of for me. I feel like I'm in high school again. I feel a little guilty for sleeping so late, but really, I don't have that much to do today. Just run, finish wrapping presents, and clean up the apartment.

The last point of business for today is that I finished reading the New Testament this morning. One of my 101 in 1001 goals is to read the Bible (+notes). Now that I've finished the NT, I'm what?, a third of the way done? I'm not sure if I can get through the entire OT next year, but we'll see.

I'm going out for 6mi in a few minutes. It's much warmer and less crazy out there than last week. Hope everyone has an awesome Saturday!

Treadmill Experiment

My plan this morning is to try an experiment in treadmill tempo running. I have found that running on the treadmill (definitely my home treadmill and the treadmills at the gym I went to in NM) was way harder than it would be outside. HOWEVER, I think the treadmills at the UW gym seem a bit easier. This could be because it's cooler at the gym than at home or I'm more awake when I use them or any number of things.

Last week I was supposed to do 4x12 minute tempo intervals at a set pace that would have been a little difficult to do outside but definitely achievable. On my treadmill, not so much. So I'm going to see if I have a different experience on the gym treadmill. It's not that I want to make it way easier on myself and delude myself that I can run faster than I can, but I want to give myself a fighting chance on workouts where I'm trying to hit certain paces.

So anyway, we'll see how it goes.

Tonight we are going to my youth group leader Christmas party. It will be catered by Qdoba or Famous Dave's (BBQ) so it should be pretty good. It's an ugly sweater party (is anyone NOT having an ugly sweater party this year?), but we don't have ugly sweaters and are not going to buy something dumb like that. We entertained the idea of D wearing one of mine and me wearing one of his, but he will definitely not fit into one of my sweaters without ruining it so that won't be happening tonight.

Whew... wish me luck... 2 more busy days at work this week and 2 more next week. The end is in sight but I have SO MUCH to do before then (although, woot, we got almost all our Christmas cards finished last night).

Quick one

Morning!

I have exactly 9 minutes to get this post done so I can hop on the treadmill for my run. I really don't have time to sneak in a post at work this week, and with all the holiday preparations/events in the evening I don't have time for one then either! This is why procrastination = bad.

Anyway, I did get a run in outside on Saturday. I was considering staying in on the treadmill, but then I looked at the weather forecast and remembered, "Oh yeah, this is the first day of the next three months of my life." So I bundled up big time- really too much- and set out to do my 6mi loop. I hesitate to call what I did a run. It was more like an all-terrain winter adventure. The conditions on the roads and sidewalks were mixed. I had everything from fallen tree limbs to packed snow to dry sidewalk (why UW are the sidewalks nicer than the roads after a snow?) to sidewalk glaciers. It probably took me an hour and a half to get all the way around, but I did it and was happy for that.

Yesterday I did 45 min on the elliptical and then hopped on the treadmill to do 20 minutes fast. When I set the pace, I thought, "There's no way...", but actually I hung on and made it the whole 20 minutes. I had a minor crisis of faith at 6 minutes to go, but by the last minute I was able to bump the speed up. Yeah, the calibration was probably wrong because this treadmill was way faster than our treadmill at home (although I'd had 45 minutes to warm up so that couldn't have hurt), but I felt pretty awesome after I was done. I've felt a little bit down about all things healthy eating and fitness wise lately and this run really gave me a boost.

Also on the bizarrely good at a sport front, I bowled 124 in a game last night. We had our church small group end of the year outing last night, and I gave away our gifts and ornaments (still not being disclosed because there are a few people who read this who will be getting them) and people seemed to like that.

Anyway, I'm now one minute over my time limit! I must fly! 10 days to Christmas!

Berbee Derby/ Thanksgiving recap

I had a really nice Thanksgiving yesterday. Of course I missed seeing my family, but it was nice to have a peaceful day with D by myself. It was just the right balance of relaxing and productive that I enjoy when I have time off.

The morning started with a COLD 5k race. Not too much to report. My finish time was 24:51, which put me in the "happy" outcome for my race goals. I think that's a pretty good description of how I felt about the race. I pushed myself hard the whole way and was able to give a kick and pass people at the end (which has been a problem in the past). I totally smoked two 10-year-olds right before the finish line, haha. But it just wasn't a PR day or a PR course, and I'm fine with that. The more I race and push myself the faster I'll get. Overall I think I'm ending the year on a positive note.

Then we went out to lunch and had a delicious meal. We came back, chilled out for awhile, and then canned marinara sauce. I can't believe how many tomatoes it takes to make just a few jars of sauce (also, freezing tomatoes is not a good idea). I am thankful for mass production and grocery stores. After canning, we watched Up and I ate my leftovers from lunch.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and will continue to have a good long weekend. We are off today (unpaid for me- Thanks state of WI :( ). We are avoiding all retail establishments and will hopefully enjoy a relaxing day exploring the Twin Cities.

Saturday in the park

I think it was the 21st of November??? Just doesn't quite have that ring to it. Anyway, no parks for me. I did drag myself out of bed at 5am (normal weekday time) to run so I could get to our high school service event at 9am.

The run was not so great. Actually my pacing was great. It was a progressive run where I did 4x15 minutes, each set progressively faster. And I did that part right. The only problem was that my pacing was an entire minute/mile slower than I would have liked it to be. When I reviewed my run at the end I was totally shocked how... well... bad it was. I didn't feel bad, but I'm afraid these cruddy Saturday runs are becoming a regular thing.

I'm not sure what the best thing to do is. Maybe I need to take Fridays completely off. My Monday-Thursday workouts are all interval-type workouts (MW on the spin bike) so maybe my body just has too much built up fatigue at that point. I do a super easy short run on Friday, but maybe even that is too much. I guess it couldn't hurt to try it for awhile. But you guys know how it is... it feels so good to get up and run in the morning. I'm open to other suggestions if anyone has any.

My other workout for today was coring apples for 3 straight hours. Well, not a complete 3 straight hours. I took a 20 minute break in there to chop apples before I went back to coring. This was for our service project today. A local neighborhood center has a huge pie sale every year at Thanksgiving to raise money for their programming, and the need slave labor to assemble and bake 1000 pies. Well, that was us today. Also, somehow coring apples seems to have aggravated my IT band. Explain that one to me...

Anyway, hope all of you are having a restful and/or productive Saturday. I admit to having done very little useful since I got home from apple time, but we are due for grocery shopping tonight. Tomorrow will be chore and errand time.

Fun Friday

Sorry I was lame about posting the last two days. It wasn't that I was even super busy or had absolutely nothing to say... I just didn't get my act together to post.

I did spinning Wednesday, 4mi easy today, and 5.5 mi with 2x1 mile hard yesterday. I don't know what the deal is with my pacing/where I'm running. I really felt like I was giving even effort- maybe even a harder effort on the first mile- but I finished the first on in 7:59 min and the second in 7:41 min. Don't get me wrong, I was super happy with the second mile, but what's up with the first one??? I warmed up, did drills, focused, and pushed myself hard all the way through to the end. I just don't know. I usually run pretty even splits when I race. Meh. Someday I need to suck it up and do an interval workout on the indoor track to see if the problem is with a) me or b) the ground. I'd like it if it were the ground, but if it's me, I need to figure something out so I don't "waste" my first interval running slow. A longer warm-up? Hmmmmm.....

Otherwise my only excitement was lucking into what I hope is a really cool Christmas gift for my parents. I actually put it in the mail yesterday because I was too excited to wait, and I wanted them to have it before the holidays. Can't say what it is because I know they occasionally read this.

This will be another somewhat busy weekend. We're having dinner with some friends this evening, and I have to go help bake pies at a neighborhood center with some of our church high school kids tomorrow morning. I doubt the FIU game will be televised out here so I don't have to worry about missing football.

I'm getting excited about Thanksgiving weekend. Hope you all have a great Friday.

Surviving Spinning

Whew. We had another tough spinning workout this morning. Actually it was a repeat of the killer workout we had a few weeks ago. We got to pick if we wanted to do something new from the regular Monday instructor or an old workout from the regular Wednesday instructor who was covering today. We chose old. Big mistake. I recognized the first song and knew we were in for a world of tough. At least there was no race pace, but I think 45 seconds on, 15 seconds off is my new least favorite phrase to hear.

Yesterday wasn't super exciting. I feel like I spent the whole day at church between the actual service, a training I had to attend in the afternoon, and high school youth. At least I had a chance to start playing around with my Christmas ornaments this year. It's not my favorite ever, but I think they will be pretty easy to knock out. I can't tell you what they are because some people who read this are getting one (whether they like it or not), and I want it to be a surprise.

Christmas is coming

I don't have much to say fitness-wise today. I did 6mi on the treadmill this morning before the roads and sidewalks were cleared. I wasn't sure if our sidewalks would be plowed over the weekend so I played it safe and stayed indoors.

Here are a few holiday pictures to help get in the spirit. A few are from our trip to Chicago. One is of the ornaments I made this year. The last is my Christmas gift from Daniel. It's a wooden nativity scene cut like a puzzle. Evidently the artist who made it is local to Madison. She'd also done a Noah's Ark, a panda, a brontosaurus, and some other neat things.

The weekend is always too short

It's 4pm on Sunday, and it feels like the weekend has flown by. Just when I get used to not having to get up at 5:30 and not having to be productive all day, it's time to turn around and get cranking again.

Yesterday was my long run day. I did 12mi in right under 1:48, which was exciting because it's the first time I've finished a long run with an average pace faster than a 9-minute mile. I'm still thinking about training and marathons, but I'm back to the idea of just doing Mad City in the spring. I don't see a huge benefit to any of the other marathons I've considered- or at least not one that's greater than not having to travel.

In order to celebrate fall (and push the Christmas craziness back a bit- at least in my mind), here are a couple pictures from Madison this fall. One is me right after I cut my hair, one is D. firing a gourd into a lake, and the last is our pumpkin for Halloween. Hopefully it's obvious which is which.

OMG. The weather is beautiful. Get me out of the office!

It's a quiet day at work and a beautiful day outside. You can't imagine how much I want to be out there. It has rained every single day for at least the last week, but today it's warm and sunny. And I am inside. Very sad, indeed.

I'm thinking that as long as the weather holds, (weather.com seems to think it's nasty outside, but it's definitely not) I'm going to do another run after work and call it my long run for the week. I know that you don't get the real benefits of a long run if you split it in two, but I like to have one 12-miler in the log every week, and I don't think it'll matter too much if I fudge this one a bit. Besides, tomorrow we are supposed to be back to rainy, cold, windy, and nasty. I'll save a short run for that, thanks very much.

Also, I have so many great ideas for Christmas/baby shower gifts to make. I think from now on I'm designating Sunday as craft day. I should have my ornaments finished (or ready to be finished) by the end of the South Carolina game tomorrow so I can start on some new stuff. I can't say what they are right now, though, because someday I'm going to "go public" to friends and family with the blog, and I don't want to give away any surprises.

I'm excited because I love it when I see the perfect gift for someone and it's even better when I can take part in making it so it has that personal, memorable touch!

______________________________________
Workout:
6mi in the am, hopefully 6 more this evening
Walk to work
No stairs (which is probably a large part of the reason I feel so antsy right now)

Veteran's Day

Happy Veteran's Day to everyone who is serving and who has served in our armed forces. This is the most free country in the world, and we owe a large debt to the men and women who have made that possible. Most just give the gifts of talent and time- letting the US military control their lives for a few years- but many give the gift of their lives. I guess by definition you can't be a vet and have been killed in war, but it seems appropriate to honor all of our service men and women today: both those who lived to be vets and those who didn't.

Today is also the 6th anniversary of "coupledom" for D. and I. I didn't plan anything special, but I think it's an important milestone to recognize at least verbally.

_______________________________________
Workout:
7mi with 4x800 at 6.6, and 3x6.7
As a side note: I'm trying a new experiment where I use a perceived exertion scale to pick paces when I do intervals on the treadmill (because I'm much slower on it than I am outside). So I tried to hit these intervals at a 7/10. I'm thinking 400s can be done at 8/10 and tempo at 6/10. Then, like I've been doing in spinning, I can adjust what my "7" is as I get faster. I'm actually hoping that I have a treadmill "epiphany" soon where I can run at my normal outside paces without it being soooo hard.

2 sets stairs
Walk on treadmill (it's nasty outside)???
Strength