About ready to go, my first real speed workout!!!

The last 4 months off of running have been tough and it left the question in my mind, will I come back? I never expected to be as fast as I am now. I never expected to run a sub-6 minute mile, much less 5k, or a 6:11 half marathon or a 6:45-paced marathon. But I have with a year and a half of honest training.... Was it all a freak accident?

My knee feels almost better today, tight on the outside (where there is no cartilage) and a little painful on the inside (where there is torn cartilage). In contrast, my head felt like crap this morning. I woke up with a runny nose, swollen eyes, and a scratchy voice. When I feel like this in general, only one thing makes it go away: running really fast. No joke. I feel like I can't get out of bed, so I get that lymph moving and suddenly the runny nose is gone and I can think clearly. As I had a quiz at 7:55 that I needed to study for before class, I had to wait until noon to try to clear my head the way I did throughout winter last year.

While I don't like talking ad nauseum about the pace of my speed workouts or how hard I try, etc, etc, I'm dang proud of my first speed workout back. (For the record I'm not supposed to do speed for a few more weeks....) So I got on the treadmill, put it to a merciful 0.5% incline. Before I did all my treadmill runs at at least a 1.0% incline, usually more, and pulled off:

1.5 mile @ 6:07 pace (9.8mph)

.25 mile recovery

1.5 mile @ 6:00 pace (10.0mph)

.25 mile recovery

1.5 mile @ 5:52 pace (10.2 mph)

.25 mile recovery

.5 mile @ 5:39 pace (10.6 mph?)

.25 mile recovery

.5 mile @ 5:33 pace (10.8mph?)

.25 mile recovery

.5 mile @ 5:27 pace (11.0 mph)

1 mile cool down.

I'm almost back baby and getting ready to go! Hopefully the knee will keep improving and I can get back to my old speed workout paces, but hey, I'll take this as a sign for good things to come! YAYYYYYYYY!