- Rachelle of Running for Trevor "mocking me" after my horrible run yesterday
Don't think for a second that I was "offended" by Rachelle's comments! That might have been my most favoritist comment that anyone has ever left me. I literally "lol'd"! Rachelle "gets" me, and I know she was just jabbin'! Plus, Rachelle is one of my favoritist runner/bloggers! You should check out her AMAZING reports of SPEED on her blog, but more importantly read about her amazing story and why she runs. She's awesome! (Yes, I know favoritist is not a word.
But Rachelle was right ... I did "wuss-out" after two miles on Wednesday. I was energy depleted, dehydrated, it was humid, excuse, excuse, excuse! In the past, when I've had huge failures like that, it would really bum me out and I might really slide the next couple of days ... but not this time baby! Today was different!
I really feel like I'm in a good groove right now and getting stronger and faster than ever. So I got right back on the ol' "workout horse", and ran 10 miles this morning in Ankeny, IA - which is awesome because it's flat! I had a tempo run scheduled and wasn't sure how it would go ... but here are the splits:
9:21, 8:11, 7:53, 7:17, 7:10, 6:45, 6:55, 7:13, 6:48, 7:13
Avg HR 162 (a little higher than I would have liked, but it was pretty humid)
Even though they were kind of all over the place as far as pace, the last seven tempo miles were at an average pace of 7:03 ... which is right were I want to be right now for the "lowish" amount of effort I seemed to be running with. I felt really fluid and smooth and I'm running almost 95% pain free these days - which is nice! (I still have a little soreness below my right butt cheek in the top of my hamstring. But it's getting better!)
This evening, I got 7 more miles in with a nice smooth recovery run, for a total of 17 today. So far for the week I have 70 miles with an 18-20 scheduled back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday. I've been averaging 80-90 miles for the last few weeks and I feel great! Hydrating and refueling are the biggest challenges, but overall my energy level is fine!
I know I'm getting stronger as a runner, but yesterday's disaster of a run was a good life lesson I guess. Not that anyone is gonna learn much from me. But we're gonna get knocked down from time-to-time. Our character is revealed by how long we stay down. Hopefully I'm gaining "character" as a runner and not staying down as long ... even though most people would probably define me as just a "character"!
... be great today!
