Feeling Strong

Yesterday was one of those days when you have the feeling ... the good kind of feeling ... feeling of getting in the great workout while feeling strong. My friend Radek from běhej.com had an innocent remark. He said that it seems to him like I am afraid of going fast. And after giving it some thought, I think he was right. Time for change! I don't mean that I will change the paces defined by The Coach in my training plan. I change my attitude. Running the same runs, but not with the predefined feeling of going for hardish run and having to struggle through it. The new attitude is: it is great to feel strong when going fast (or fast-ish).

And yesterday, I had 10 km at 5:00 min/km = 6.22 miles at 8:02 min/mile. Less than year ago, that was my 10 km personal best with really huge amount of effort put in. Finally, my 10 km went under 50 minutes with average pace of 7:52 min/mile (4:53 min/km), yay! And I felt bad ass strong, like the proper member of the Badasstinista team. I was running faster than most of the guys out there and still managed to keep my heart rate under control. I know this might be childish and they might have had their easy runs, but still, it gave me great feeling I am not ashamed of. I also wore my hot pink compression socks and my New Balance capris (sorry, no photo here, I still do not have mirror tall enough). And that is my feeling strong gear, sometimes you need to boost the confidence. Like Amanda in her Brooks top (check out the link, it goes to her last Vlog she recorded while recovering on a treadmill ... I wish my recovery runs are at such a fast pace once).

Another change is that I actually did the workout with music. Since I have started working with The Coach, I have been listening to music or audio books only on the long slow workouts so I am able to concentrate on my form and breathing during my faster run that I always do without music. Well, yesterday I felt like running with my favorite playlist to get some extra boost. As Honza highlighted in his last post, improvisation and randomness is a good thing!

On two random notes:

1) I am currently leading in the competition for the Best Czech Running Blogger. The voting ends tomorrow (March 17). Please, please if you have a minute of your time go to Leona's blog where the voting is happening. Thank you all who already voted and thank you all who will! :)

2) My dear best friend unfortunately cannot run the Prague's half-marathon, so she is offering her starting number for sale. Email me at barborkas(at)me(dot)com and I will put you two in touch. This is probably better for female runners, since she is a girly girl, so the number will be marked with F for female... :)