Day 3, Week 3: Mile FREAKING repeats, wireless headphones are awesome, and recovery is important.

You know how I told you before that I HATE tempo runs?  Well, I feel the exact opposite about speed work on the treadmill:

I love it.  LOVE it.  I could do it all day.  Or at least until I collapse.

I think it's because during speed work they throw in rest intervals between running short distances at warp speed, so there's always something to look forward to during the run.  Rest intervals also allow you to delude yourself into thinking you can actually do another repeat and not have your husband come and ask you if he needs to call an ambulance because you're all red-faced and breathing as if one of your lungs just burst in your chest.  Those rest intervals, luckily, cause those crazy breathing noises to subside and then you're all good for another round of short distance running torture.  In any case, I love the challenge speed work brings in short but heavy-breathing red-faced doable bursts.

Except for this morning's workout.  This morning's workout was.....mile repeats.

Yeah.  Like down to ZERO.  But the training schedule said I had to do three of them at an 8 min/mile pace, so who am I to argue?

The key to getting through any tough workout like this is all about reframing it in your mind so it seems achievable.  Some people like to think of mile repeats as just 2 half-mile repeats back to back, or four quarter mile repeats.  Some people focus on the time it takes to complete a repeat, as in "It will only take me 8 minutes to run this mile!  I'll be done in no time flat!"  My strategy is to think this during a mile repeat to help me embrace the suck:

• First 3/4 of the mile: You got this.  It's just a 1200m with one more loop on the end.  You are awesome.  You are a gazelle gliding across the savannah.  You are running nirvana.
• Last 1/4 of the mile: I WILL NEVER MAKE IT I'M GOING BACK TO BED

Repeat each of the above 2 more times with a 400m walk between each where you try not to scamper off the treadmill and back into bed.

I did manage to complete the workout, and rewarded myself with my recovery drink of choice with some side-eye from the large dog.

Remember kids, recovery is important.  But you know what else is important?  Running tunes.

I always run with music; in fact, I can't get through tough speed workouts or tempos without some tunes to motivate me and my feet.  I recently purchased the headphones you see pictured above, a pair of Sony MDR-XB80BS wireless headphones, when the same pictured large dog ate my Sony MDR-XB50BS wireless headphones.  I don't know about you, but I always use dogs eating headphones as an excuse for an upgrade.

So, what's so special about these headphones?  Let me count the ways:

• Excellent sound, and it has some extra bass going on as well.  You can't adjust the bass like some fancier headphones, but who cares?  When I do speed work it helps drown out the sounds of my labored breathing so I can be in denial about how fast I'm actually running.  While these aren't for audiophiles, if you just want nice-sounding music, these are the headphones for you.
• Magical noise canceling properties.  When I'm on an overnight relay and need to sleep upright in the captain's chair of a van, these are my go-to headphones.  I slap these suckers in my ears, turn on my white noise app, and I can sleep through all sorts of loud screaming runners and van doors slamming.
• Easy setup.  If you can't hook up a bluetooth device to your headphone by now....why not???  It's so easy these days.
• No connection weirdness.  I used to have a pair of wireless headphones that would sound like a skipping CD because the connection between the phone and the headset kept getting dropped.  Not with these-it has never happened in the month I've owned them.

My only complaint is that the volume/track changing buttons are hard for me to use while running.  They're located on the back of the right earbud:

Seems like it would be a piece of cake to use those buttons, right?  Not for me.  Every time I try and skip ahead or back tracks, I inevitably yank the right one out of my ear, causing me to do a weird run/hunch to the right side trying to get it back in.  But I think that's more an issue of my uncoordinated and ginormous fingers than a defect in design of the earbud.

So what have we learned from this blog post?

• Mile repeats suck.
• But mile repeats are doable and so good for you.
• Always recover from speed work with nutrition of your choice (even a bad choice)
• Wireless headphones are awesome
• Specifically, MY wireless headphones are awesome.

Tomorrow's workout: A bike ride if it's not foggy.  And maybe some weights.