Dreaming is Unacceptable

Yesterday were 2k reps followed by 1k recovery. Just one week after the glorious 500m reps, things spiraled down. I had made the fortuitous error of not checking my goal pace prior to the morning. When I did, I realized I was written down for a lightening speed of 4.45min/km! And that - if I may remind you - is over two kms not one km. Yikes! I have yet to break that pace for my 1k reps this year!
Now, there are two things to remember as you are reading the rest of this post.

1. The course was about 1.92km long, meaning it was 800m short
2. I did not realize this until after the second set.

We started off. I kept myself near others who were going around my speed. Having no idea how to pace myself for a 2k rep at a speed faster than I had gone all year, I set my inner pacer past fast to the edge of sustainable and off I went. I kept track of my 500m split times to check-in with my pace.
Rep 1: 9.13sec
Rep 2: 9.13sec

This is where I went from shock to elation, as I learned the course was somewhat shorter and that my seemingly superhero pace was probably right on target. Still, if someone had told me I would run at that pace over 2k I would have laughed in disbelief. I wonder sometimes if it's my inner critic that is the biggest champion of my running slowly.
In the last rep, we were crunching on time and so started the final 2k after a 500m recovery (as opposed to the 1k recovery we had been doing). It was not the lack of recovery that threw me. It was - silly as it sounds - starting from a different spot. The trails were also crowded with fellow runners and I forgot to keep track of my split times. Up until 1k, this was fine. But soon after the 1k turn-around, I let myself get distracted. I noticed people I had been running with pull ahead of me, but I didn't think much of it until I had about 300m to go and realized just how far I had let myself slow down!
Embarrassed and annoyed with myself, I picked up the pace. As luck would have it, the change in course meant that the final 300m were up a slight hill.
Rep 3: 9.31sec

I'm not angry with my speed (hey, it's still faster than I might have believed possible!) but I was rather angry with why I was at that speed. Most people would logically presume that it was because I had gone too quickly the first two reps and died out. I could forgive myself if that were the reason. But no, it is because I was day-dreaming. Day-dreaming has it's place (namely, long runs) but it is really very unacceptable in a speed session. Like maggots in rice, day-dreaming does not belong in a speed session!