Day 5, Week 7: The Six Stages of Speed Work.

This morning I had some speed work show up in the ol' Runner's World My Run Plan app: a 3 x 2000m workout.

In case the "2K" isn't familiar to you, that's shorthand for 2000m repeats.  That's also shorthand for "holy crap that's 1.25 miles and I have to run three of those suckers." Seeing that sent me spiraling through the stages of speed work.  What stages of speed work, you ask?  Well, let me list them out for you:

STAGE #1: DENIAL

"Speed work again? Nononononononononono  NO"

STAGE #2: ANGER

"Speed work I hate you so much I will SHAKE MY FIST AT YOU"

STAGE #3: BARGAINING

"Maybe I'll just do this after work.  Or only do two of those repeats.  Or none of them and just do the warm-up and cool-down.  Or not do it at all.  Yeah."

STAGE #4: DEPRESSION

*checks weather for the day* It's going to be too hot to do this workout later in the day.  I'm going to have to do it right now.... *silent sobbing*

STAGE #5: ACCEPTANCE

"OK DAMMIT IMMA GONNA GO DO IT STOP PRESSURING ME....but I need to take selfies first."

And finally...

STAGE 6: CELEBRATION

Got 'er done.  Woot.  And in paw-print running shorts, no less.

Tomorrow's workout: Some heavy lifting of some heavy weights. Woot.

Day 4, Week 7: My cycling motivation this morning.

Today was a cycling day.  It was supposed to be 20 miles, but the workout ended after 17.5-ish miles because, you know, work.  And because my legs were all sorts of tired from the mile repeats done way too fast yesterday.

This workout almost didn't happen because of several reasons:

1) I woke up late despite zonking out asleep at 8 PM.
2) I wanted to have my morning coffee more than getting into my cycling shorts.
3) I had to Instagram my normal photos of my cute workout-interfering animals, and
4) I just didn't wanna do it.  I was tired.  My quads were clearly saying NOPE.

But I did get out and do it, for several more reasons:

1) Because I am a slave to the training schedule.
2) There was no wind and temps were in the 50s.  You can't waste a morning like that.
3) Because if I didn't do some sort of workout I fear that something drastic and vaguely apocalyptic would happen, like the Earth suddenly no longer spinning on its axis
4) Most importantly, I wouldn't have any stupid workout pics with which to annoy people on this little blog of mine.

I just FELT like biking. I crack myself up lol.

Your guess is as good as mine as to why I have that stupid smirk
on my face.

Look, ma, no tri suit for once!

Tomorrow's workout: The app calls a 3 x 2000m repeat workout a "threshold" workout.  I call is CRAY CRAY.

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!