Practice To Suffer So Racing Becomes Easy

I started my day today feeling a little sorry for myself because I didn’t think I’d get a chance to run today.  My wife had PT for her knee surgery and swimming this morning, so I would have had to wake up at 3:45 to run.  With the race last night and the late shake out run I thought sleep was more important.  The rest of my day from 7am-7pm was spent installing a roof on my camper.  It was a job that came about unexpectantly due to some storms that came through a few days ago.  Roofing has got to be my least favorite work, especially on a 90+ heat index day.  I was on the roof from 8:00-3pm without a break pushing hard to get the job done before dark.  I hit the wall at 3 and had to take a break because I was getting a little tipsy.  After an hour break I dragged my aching body back up the ladder and finished the job.  I cleaned up the site laced up my running shoes.  I figured I’d get 4-6 miles at best.  The first 4 miles I had to walk twice and I almost lost my cookies a couple times (drank too much water before I went out).   I made it back to the campground and decided to try for another mile, which turned into another 6 miles!  Other than the first 4 miles I felt reasonably good.  I walked one more time because I could tell my IT bands were very tight from the roofing and I was concerned about over stressing them.   My run looked like this  9:06,8:49,8:44,8:27,8:21,8:13,8:14,7:56,8:19,8:01 = 10 for avg. of 8:25 pace.  Although, I didn’t have a very relaxed day and this isn’t my typical routine I managed to turn my gloom and doom day into a very productive self-fulfilling day!