Road to Joy

A TM day.  Blah.  I was looking at the distance every .1 miles after just .5 miles.  I tried to get myself thinking about the house and what I'd like to do inside and outside but I had already been thinking those thoughts all day making them too stale to entice my mind away.  I probably need to start memorizing something - like presidents or the battles of the Napoleonic Wars or something that takes lots of power of recall.  Maybe that would make the time pass.  Anyhow - I think it was probably a 7:50 pace or something.  I bounced the pace around a little bit just to divert myself.  I'm feeling a bit sore in all the same places that I have over the last couple of weeks.  I'll try to stretch out well tonight.

Without a watch this is all guesses, but I think I went close to 10 today.  I ran from my sister-in-law's house so I'm not as sure on mileage from there.  My legs still feel pretty junky today.  It was hard to make myself want to do anything, but when I hit my 1 mile repeat start I told myself to just take my pace up a little bit.  I usually stop to stretch and get mentally ready when I do my 1 mile repeats, but it was best just to run through this morning.  By the second mile repeat I was much more focused and felt like I was challenging myself.  I just did 4x1 mile today.  I considered tagging on a couple of 800s but my legs were really done. 

Through my whole warm-up I was in negative thought mode what with my legs feeling bad and knowing that there was serious flooding in the area where Dan and I just bought a house that I am currently fifteen hundred miles away from.  But doing those mile repeats really put me in a better place.  I came up with a plan of what I need to do and life feels more sunshiny.  Man, I don't enjoy those plunges of despair.  Thank goodness for running.

I had a meeting regarding our move up at Hill Air Force Base this morning so I left the kids with family and went up.  The meeting lasted all of 10 minutes so after that I decided to do a run.  It was nice to be running somewhere new - even though it was pretty homely surroundings.  My husband is guessing that my leg problems are coming from having shoes that are too old...and full of holes...and stinky.  So I put some shoes on that I didn't use as thoroughly as I have used these for my run today.  I noticed the cushiony difference.  I think I'm going to have to find a way to get myself to a shoe store and hope for some good behavior from my groupies - they follow me everywhere.

I drove out to Colorado yesterday for one last visit with my parents before they head to Europe for the year.  My Dad took a temporary job out there that will give them quite the bang for their working-life finale.  Pretty exciting, huh?  I had all sorts of plans of going to visit them and touring all over the continent myself - and then I remembered I had three kids - not one of them is four yet.  I would have loved you well Europe.  I promise.

1 1/2 mile warm-up and cool-down, 5 mile tempo run.  Still no watch but I imagine I was somewhere in the 6:45-50s.  I started out pretty hard and faded at the end - and by end I definitely mean from the mid-way mark on.  It was nice to know what too hard feels like.

I was hoping to do a 20 mile run tomorrow but my sister who lives in Colorado called tonight on her way to the ER possibly for surgery.  My parents went up to stay with her kids tonight.  That leaves me babysitter-less for tomorrow.  Am I concerned for my sister?  YES!  And yet I feel bad for me...pathetic.  Oh obsession.

My sister ended up being ok.  I got my run in Saturday afternoon.  I did a point-to-point run instead of a loop.  It was a gradual gain in elevation which my legs more than my eyes could bear testimony to.  I also didn't find water along my route until the 16 mile mark.  That just about killed me.  It was the most painful run of this training cycle.  It was good for me mentally to have pushed through to the end, but, wow...next time I'll be a better girl scout and get myself prepared.