Wednesday: 20 mile bike ride
Thursday: Tempo Run. Sort of.
Friday: 45 minutes of upper body weights and 10 minutes of core work.
Take a look at that bike ride. That's the longest bike ride I have ever taken. Let me tell you, 20 miles on the bike is absolutely nothing like 20 miles on the run. Twenty miles on the bike feels like this:
After a 20 mile run I feel like this:
But I am currently experiencing a dilemma with this "biking on Wednesdays" thing. You see, my training schedule says that I should be running 6 easy miles on that day. However, sometimes my shins and ankles are so shot from the speed work I do on Tuesdays that the bike turns into a much-needed low-impact recovery run substitute. I just worry that I won't be running the right weekly mileage to prepare me to run the 26.2. I know it's about quality over quantity, but...I'm torn. I think I may leave the biking to the weekend and put that 6 miler back in. I am open to any thoughts or advice you may have on the whole "bike or easy run" dilemma.
Now let's shift gears for a second (BAD CYCLING PUN TOTALLY INTENDED). Let's talk about running angry.
I woke up yesterday to find a particularly irritating email in my inbox. It was the kind of irritation that grows inside you the more you think about it until it consumes all of your thoughts and blossoms into a full-on anger that you just can't shake off for a few days. Or years. Anyway, an hour after reading that email I was firmly and completely pissed off. I was planning on doing my scheduled tempo run in the evening, but decided to go for a short 2 mile run just to shake the angries out before I went to work and glared at people all day. So I pulled on a cute running skirt and my favorite running visor and scooted out the door and down the driveway.
What do I find at the end of the drive way? A dead kitten. Dead. Kitten. A little grey and white cute little furry ball of death was lying on my property, flies buzzing busily about its little dead pink nose.
Yeah. I took that as a sign things weren't going to go well that day. The universe needs some lessons in tactfully breaking it to you that you are going to have a shitter of a day, methinks. A simple post-it note on my car would have sufficed. "Dear Terie: Today your day will suck total arse. Prepare to be dominated and owned regularly and consistently. FYI-The Universe."
So, after a day of slow-boiling rage wherein I managed to cover said anger with a thin veneer of professionalism and one-word phrases, I came home and got dressed to do my tempo run. Now, if you are one of the very very few people who read this blog, you know how much I despise my traditional 8 mile tempos. While I was looking forward to running, I wasn't looking forward to this particular run.
But I sucked it up and went outside and got it started. And all I could think about was the work situation that made me angry in the first place. My focus was destroyed, the run felt way harder than usual, my legs felt wooden, and, to add insult to injury, my large intestine had decided NOT to cooperate with me.
I quit after 3 miles. I was angry and full of intestinal gas that was slowly ripening into a situation beyond my control. I walked home so I could use a bathroom inside for a change.
I think I was the most upset about the fact that I let my mental state destroy a perfectly good workout. The more I run, the more I realize your brain needs to be trained much, much more than your body.
photo credit: EYECCD via photopin cc
photo credit: jczart via photopin cc
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