I beat the workout. And I was really sweaty.

If you are one of the 5 or so people that regularly read this blog, you are well aware that I have mental issues.  I also have mental issues with running, especially running on the treadmill.  I did a lot of half-baked winter runs on my 'mill, wimping out or shortening my speed workouts because I just couldn't take moving but staying still, giving in to that little voice that says "YOU WILL NOT MAKE IT GIVE UP NOW.  DWEEB."

That voice is much quieter now that I can run outside.  It doesn't go away, however, and the memories of some of my abandoned workouts still haunt me.

Take, for example, any workout involving 800 meter repeats.

The distance is not the problem.  What the distance seems like on the treadmill is.  And because the time it takes to make two evil glowing loops on my treadmill seems to be measured in eons and epochs rather than seconds and minutes, I have come to dread any workout that involves multiple 800 meter repeats.  I can mentally manage to pull off a 6 x 800 m workout, but the 8 x 800...that workout has always eluded me.  I never did run that 8 x 800 workout successfully and completely during my last round of marathon training.

But this morning I did.  I beat the workout.  Add that to my growth list.

It was muggy this morning, but I really think I'm getting used to that and the heat (it was in the mid-70s when I stepped out the door at 5:30 A.M.).  My legs were a bit tired still from those 20 miles on Monday, but I shook that out in the first repeat.  I had the Garmin programmed (MAGIC!) to have me run those repeats between an 8:00 and an 8:15 pace, and I am happy to report that I stayed on the lower end of that on average for each repeat.

Again, I walk my recoveries.  Don't judge me.

But the more important thing is that I did all 8 of them.  All eight, baby.  You see, I was starting to fatigue by the 5th repeat.  The 6th repeat had my legs feeling a little wobbly.  And the 7th...that's where the real workout began.  I was fighting both mentally and physically to get through those last 2 repeats, ones that I had never done before because I had always stopped short.

Today was different.  That 8th repeat was hard.  It hurt.  I was wheezing at the halfway point, but I pushed through it.  More growth and progress, you see.  It is also interesting to note that an 8:05 pace felt pretty damn comfortable for those first 6 repeats--not bad for someone who used to struggle to maintain that pace for any workout such as this.

I'm just growing all over the place.  A veritable running growth spurt.  And, to make it an extra-special day, I realized that the pants I wore to work today were a size 4, not the size 6 I thought they were.  Bonus.

But today wasn't all rainbows and unicorns.  Because of the nasty hot weather, I did look similar to this at the end:

Only I wasn't carrying weights and I'm not a dude.  But the amount of sweat on the shirt is about the same.  And huge drops of sweat were pretty much flinging themselves off my body, as if it couldn't even stand to be near me.

Growth is good, but it's pretty damn sweaty.

photo credit: dalydose via photopin cc