Day 6, Week 5: Claws in my face and a rainy tempo run

Let me tell you about my morning.  Oh, and my run.

I got up at 3:45 AM because the female cat decided she needed rubs right now no she means RIGHT NOW or you get the CLAWS in the FACE.

All shall rub her at 3:45 AM and despair.

So I gave the cat some rubs while the small dog stood on my chest, and by "on my chest" I mean "right on a part of the body only females have on their chest," which hurt like a son of a gun.

So I just decided to get out of bed, have breakfast, and see if it was raining when I took the dogs out.  It was all clear when I went outside with the dogs, so I went back inside and got dressed to take the large dog out for a spin around the neighborhood, planning on doing 8 total miles with 6 of those at what the training plan considers a "long tempo" pace: around 9:00 min/mile.

My running outfit was dog-approved.

I got the dog all ready and myself all ready and then wrangled the dog outside...only to find that it was now, in fact, raining.  BUMMER.  I wrangled the dog back inside and realized I had some choices:

• Totally bail and catch another 40 mins of sleep or so
• Do the run outside in the rain with the large dog becoming a huge wet ball of smelly fur
• Do the run by myself in the rain
• Do the run on the treadmill.

It's that last option that had me heading outside because there was no way I was firing up the treadmill to do a half-ass tempo run on the 'mill where I find an excuse to stop every 5 minutes.  It's also at that moment when I realized that I must be freaking serious about hitting my 4:05 time goal, because during the last marathon training cycle I would have been all over the "go back to sleep" option.

Thankfully it was a misty rain, not a heavy rain, and only sprayed me in the face and gradually soaked me so that it was annoyingly dripping off my chin after the first mile and a half or so.  I did get a chance to try a cool Brooks Run Thru running jacket I got at the Twin Cities Expo.  The jacket is pretty much all mesh except for the shoulders, so it kept me partly dry yet allowed me not to overheat on those rare occasions when I wasn't running into the rainy wind.

When I have to wake up the hubbs to take a pic,
this is the best pic you get.  Enjoy our mess in the background.

So how'd the tempo go?  Too freaking fast.  As usual.

And I was supposed to do 6 miles at tempo...but because I had to un-equip the dog and sneak out of the house before he saw me (he really doesn't like it when I go running without him), I lost some time and only had time for 5 tempo miles.  But hey-some workout is better than no workout right?


Official Learning Summary:

• I'm serious-you better rub that cat when she wants you to rub her at night or you get the claws.
• Running less than your required mileage is cancelled out by running in the rain, so it's all good.
• That running jacket rocks.  And so do those 5 dollar Walmart running tights.
• I missed running with the large dog, who pulls me along at top speed like a sled dog the entire time.
• And I am right-some workout is WAY better than no workout.  Boom.

Tomorrow's workout:  Bike ride and then I'm expo-ing it again in downtown Chicago!