Believe to Achieve

Read entire report to feel sorry for me.  Okay so I am grid locked with Thursday being piano day from 7-830am for all three girls and the fact I need to run 3 x 1600 meters with two minutes in between.  Obviously NOT going to run those on the track.  So...I decided it would be best to go after dropping my teenager off at 7am and let my husband deal with dropping the other two off at 730am for the hour together.  He also has to take Courtney back home and run the carpool to jr high.  But I was NOT about to wait until 915am to run (after everyone is in school).  I have been up since 5:20am, looking at the clock.  Blah.  PG rec opens at 5:30am so  I wouldn't be back in time to go then and come back for Courtney and my husband already rolled his eyes about how  I wouldn't be driving the girls to piano because I would be running.  This was a few days ago and I affirmatively stated that "no I am taking the girls, YES I am.  I am not running until later".  Well that was a HALF-lie apparently because I had a hard time waiting to go do this quick 9 miler.  So at least I took the first shift of driving : D.  THEN, off I went with just my iPod and water/some gu chomps to the rec center.  I started running at 7:20am.  THIS is the SAD part.  WHILE I was running my warmup, for the life of me I  could NOT get my iPOD to turn on.  I checked it before leaving-- just a visual of the light being on,  so I thought it was green.......but apparently it was NOT going to turn on.  I tried various tricks to try and get it to work WHILE I was warming up.  I thought "what in the heck? seriously?  am I really going to do this work out without music?"  all I could hear was my neighbor on the treadmill beside me coughing and hacking and blaring music from downstairs somewhere and all the other grunts and groans you hear at a gym.  Luckily it wasn't crowded but I was seriously NOT HAPPY and thought I should drive home now and come back later with a charged iPod.  But I told myself "julie this is ridiculous, you have to run now, you will just have to suck it up and deal with the fact that you will have to hear yourself working out hard and no AIDED run at all here".  Dang nab it.  I was getting more ticked.  But I finally threw my ipod in the water holder and tried to forget about it.  I ran 3.5 miles at AP 8:00 (3 % grade)---started at 8:34 and got to 7:41.   Just trying to work in some hillage here.  Then I pottied and pitied myself for what I had to do next-- 3 x 1600 (1 mile of course, 4 laps on the TM virtual graph).  First I stretched and then I was off for another 1/2 mile at 8 pace but now at 1 % to check my muscles at this incline. Then went right into the workout:  I ran  1  mile @ 6:07 (9.8mph, 1 % grade), one lap at 8:20 pace, 1  mile @ 6:00 (10mph, 1 % grade),  potty (I really needed to pee badly in those first two repeats, but I only piddled, that was weird, TMI again),  potty break was very brief, got on TM and ran a lap at 8:20 pace, then ran 1 mile @ 5:52 (10.2 mph, 0.5% grade, I like to give myself a mental edge so I decreased the incline 1/2 percent :D).  I actually ran the last .05 miles at 5:46 pace.  I   SOOOOO WANTED to quit after the first lap of the last mile but somehow I got my head out the "I want to quit zone" and made it through and instead of slowing the pace down I forced myself to speed up.  Cooldown 1.5 miles at under 8 AP and at 3 % again.  I have to say that the first 3/4 of the first mile felt awesome.  That last mile was a killer.  My shoulders got achy.  I felt nauseated.  I guess eating a cheeseburger and fries yesterday was not the best idea.  But it was so delicious!!  I really had to FOCUS due to the NO MUSIC problem.  But here is the most COMICAL part of today's run--- So I am driving home and I pull into my garage and I am walking into my house and I am like "where is THAT music coming from?" and LOW AND BEHOLD MY IPOD IS BLARING!!!  FREAKIN' KIDDING ME?  WHAT WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?  I was perplexed and was so NOT LIKING THE JOKE THAT MY IPOD PLAYED ON ME!!  Blah, blah.  Hoping that somehow running without the music today will make me stronger.  Ironically I don't wear my music on my other runs throughout the week.  I save the music for my speed work.  So it was just kind of funny that it worked out like that.