Speed Demon?

I just got home from the Portage Northern track, where I did my first speed workout.  Yes, that's right, I skipped the 5:30 am Attack class - one of my favorite things in the world - in order to subject myself to that burning-in-the-lungs-holy-crap-I'm-going-to-puke feeling one gets when one isn't used to running fast (you get the same feeling in Attack, but at least it's accompanied by techno music and super fun leg kicks).

The Kalamazoo Area Runners (of which I'm a member) and the Gazelle Summer Safari program meet at the track every Tuesday, either at 5:45 am or 6:00 pm (with a heat index like today, I'm betting the evening workout will be canceled).  Each week, they tell you what your workout should be, depending on your level of experience and what you are training for.  Since I'm not really training for a race, and since this was my first workout, I chose the easiest option: 1 mile warmup, 4x600 meter speed intervals around the track with a 400 meter recovery in between, and a cooldown.  

Before going to the track, I printed out my training paces using the McMillan Running Calculator.  It is an amazing tool - you enter your best race time (or approximate time if you're not a racer), and it gives you training paces.  The printout told me I should be doing my 600 meter intervals somewhere around a 9 minute/mile pace.  I ended up doing them between 8:04-8:34/mile pace, with my fastest pace being 7:46/mile and my slowest being a 9:03/mile pace when I was getting tired near the end.  Thank goodness for my Garmin watch; I would never push myself that much if I couldn't look down at the numbers!  

I definitely think I need to keep doing speed workouts; I have gotten too comfortable at my long run pace.  Unless it's in a group fitness class, I don't push myself to that really uncomfortable place.  Time to kick it up a notch.