I can do it!

This was supposed to be a recovery run, but the weather has cooled down here, and I felt so good I ended up doing my 5K in 25:26!  I guess doing a half-ironman didn't affect my body as much as I thought it would.  We'll see...I'll take the rest of the day off, just for good measure.  :D

We did speed work on the track.  I warmed up for a mile, then started with four 100s, then did four 200s at about a 0:44, and finished with a couple of 400s at 1:40.  By then my quads were acting like they might break down, so I decided to be smart and call it a day.  After all, I AM supposed to be in recovery!  I did a 1/2 mile cool-down.  While I was waiting for Ben to finish, I did a couple sets each of push-ups, tri-dips, and Pike's push-ups, so now my ENTIRE body feels like jello - haha!  :D

Tonight Ben came home from driving to Salt Lake and back today, and wanted to go for a run...why not? I'm a little sore from this morning's track work, so we took it pretty easy. We did another 4 miles in 38:07. 

Today I was reallly feeling the effects of yesterday's runs, so I decided to bike instead. The only problems were that I now am at home alone with a 3 year old, and my road bike is still at my friend's house, since I haven't picked it up since the tri last weekend. So I dusted off my mountain bike, hooked up the trailer, and did a spin around the neighborhood with the boy in tow. I don't think that helped my sore quads. Anyway, I managed to get 8.5 miles done in 45:04, so it was a decent ride.  :D

Despite the soreness in my quads, I pulled myself out of bed this morning and forced myself to do a 5 mile recovery run....which ended up being nott too bad...I finished in 46:19. 

I also realized today that I'm not scared of riding my bike anymore - haha!  Ben wanted to do a loop of the Ironman course after work, and I thought, "50 or 60 miles?  No problem!"  Not only that, but there's some killer hills on that route, my quads are still tender from speedwork, I am still getting the cluster headaches, and Ben and Ryan are about twice as fast as me...but, "No problem!"  I did most of the ride with a headache, but the boys were nice enough to stay with me, especially after it got dark.  It was a great ride!  We did 56.7 miles in 3:32:51, even though we took the last 4 miles super slow because it was pitch black outside.  :D

Everything within me did NOT want to get up this morning at 3:20 to run 20+ miles, but I made myself do it anyway.   I had a pretty late night, and after midnight, I told myself that I didn't need the run, and if I wanted to sleep in instead when the alarm went off, I'd go ahead and do it.  When the alarm went off, I told myself the same thing again, but I also knew that if I went ahead and ran, I would be really glad I did, so I over-rode my lower self-talk, and forced myself out of bed.  :D

It ended up being one of those not-so-great runs.  I had intended to do 22-24 miles, but I felt tired and sore for pretty much the entire run.  I kept thinking to myself, "This is my RECOVERY week!"  About mile ten, I realized that I forgot the body glide, and that I was going to have chaffed arms.  About mile 11, my legs were getting pretty sore, and I thought I would just make myself do 13 miles, and call it good enough.  But about that time, my friend Katie caught me, and talked my ear off for the rest of the run, which made me forget how miserable I was!  I figured I would quit at mile 20, which was good enough.  But when we got to the cars at the bottom of HWY 18, I was at 21.2 miles...and I thought "Why not?"  I ended up getting in 22 miles in 3:29:01...a decent pace for how awful I felt.

The GREAT news of the run was this...NO HEADACHE!  That alone makes me deliriously happy, since it's been 5 weeks since I've been able to work out without paying for it in the form of a monster headache.  And I was right...I was REALLY glad I did the run, once it was all over and done with.  :D