8:48 av: 8:28/8:14/8:57/8:43/9:08/9:15/9:05
I started out too fast. Warmed up .5 then ran about 100M repeats (every other one fast) for the first three miles, pushed a solid 4th mile. Then I gradually lost focus and ran a whole mile while I was thinking of a million other things: conversations I had with my cousin over the weekend about the U of U's accelrated Ph.D. program, an investment strategy, how to study for the GRE while I'm still working (or not), or how to generate additional income. These thoughts took exactly 9:08 minutes because I snapped out of it when my Garmin went off at mile 5. I ran one more solid-effort mile, and then I offered myself a 'cool down' mile which was almost as fast as the other miles. Those repeats/intervals were so hard I was in tears trying to maintain my effort. Am I the only one who cries when running is hard? It conjured up a bit of advice Sasha offered me once. He said "get mad, collect all you 'mad' and let the road have it" --or something to that effect. But every time I try to pick up and then maintain the pace, I can't conjure up the 'mad.' Instead I conjure up the 'martyr' and cry about how hard it is---literally cry. The hard breathing, eye rolling and crying is so pretty--real championship stuff. Next Thursday I'm going to try to run a reverse/negative split tempo. I need some know some other real work outs, instead of these ones I'm making up. But whatever, they helped me qualify for Boston last summer. Also, I'm afraid if anyone did try to teach me how to do real interval/repeats, etc. I'd probably just go all victim. It's such a character defect, but if anyone tries to help me/push me it makes me want to give up. It's got to come from inside me or else it's just not happening. I've learned that at least.
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