Patience; the new endurance sport.

"I will always have that gold medal as a memento of that day," Kearney says. "I will be impressed with how I skied and performed. That was the best run I could have skied under the most pressure on the day it really counts." 

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.

Ran 5 w/ Marsha in the pre dawn with the ol' headlamp and 2 more at lunch.  It's so foggy and moist today. It always reminds me of Oregon or winters in San Diego.  I love how the water condenses on my arm hair. I haven't needed gloves for a week even though the temps are still in the mid 30's.  I'm home at lunch getting my treadmill fixed once and for all--rollers and belt replaced.   Hopefully this should keep the treadmill going for another 5 years before the motor goes.  It has over 6,000 miles on it now.  They did a temporary fix while the parts took 6 weeks to arrive.  So for the past 6 weeks, I've had to set the incline to 3 or above just to get it to roll.  But it would still grab, or stop (mostly while I was doing speed intervals). so I'd go flying over the top. It was freaky to try and run hard & fast, but not know when the machine would quit on me..... (cue the soap opera soundtrack)....I needed that treadmill so much over the past 2 months and it betrayed me.  I had to run on the stupid BYU track--around and around and around-- when it was too dark and cold!  It let me down.  Can I learn to forgive and love my treadmill again?  Can I heal this sence of betrayal?  Can I learn to forgive?  They say time heals all things.....

9:53/8:30/8:30/8:43/9:12/8:40/9:09 

I wanted to tempo 4 miles straight with a negative split end (which I kind of did if you count the warm up mile).  But I should have started RP at mile 3 instead of 2.  Mile 5 was just killer, I had to take a breather.  I'm getting there ....running 3 miles at race pace is way easier that doing 100 M sprint/stride repeats.  I'm going to build those to 300 M next week.  I hope I Saturday's long run isn't a disaster.  Fast running really gets my hams/glutes and they are tired now. I'll be happy to pull of 16 sub 10's.

I have worked so diligently to stave off winter illness.  I have been a model of fresh food consuming, pro-biotic taking, hand washing, no food or drink sharing of public health policy.  But I woke up with my upper chest a little scratchy and tight.  Been having a hard time sleeping the past 4 nights, which is probably the true culprit.  When I don't get enough sleep or I'm under any kind of stress, I get sick.  It's guaranteed.  I'm bummed, but I know from experience the real trauma won't happen until Monday (it always takes me 2-3 days to  develop major symptoms from the onset).  Could be worse, I think it's just a cold. But if it was strep or the flu I'd be down for the count pretty quick.  It's just such bad timing--at the start of my 8 week, hardcore, training countdown.  This whole Boston Marathon training as been fraught with inconvenience and obstacle.  Par for the course.  I was just starting to get excited about my training and feeling stronger and dreaming of what it's going to be like running into the city of Boston.  Having a cold is just going to be one more discouraging and depressing event to this whole episode.  People dream of qualifying and running Boston.  I did, so why all of this?  Should be fun to see how 16 will feel when I can't breath  :(

9:43 av.  I planned on going 16, but what the heck 18. Sure. I was running with the big girls and boys.  Ran with Smooth's group. Kim/Cathy (whose coming to Boston too), Teena, Kelly, Davey Crockett and Maynard (Brad).  Dave had run 13 miles before we even got there.We ran up the windmill hill through the golf course along the Jordan River and turned around at the military cemetary at the top of the hill.  Smooth doesn't like the hills, but I do.  I knew she'd really start to rock-n-roll about mile 10, right about when I was running out of gas.  The river was so fat and full and green.  The color reminded me of the Colorado River out in the desert of Southern California.  Smooth and I saw so many hawks.  Five flying in a group and another group of  three. They flew in a bunch, circling around and falling out of the sky above the water like they were fishing.  We saw one big fat one (maybe an owl?) up in a tree.  We think we saw a bald eagle, it had a huge wing span and a white head. Lots of ducks, geese in formation flying north.  That river parkway is very pretty.  This time I could see where we were in the valley.  Last year when I went to meet them there, there was so much fog, I couldn't see the point of the mountain, or the golf course, or the windmills.  I got to tell Susanna about my newest favorite documentary (Grizzly Man) that I watched two times in a row.  Teena and Kelly had run very far ahead at a much faster pace. The other two ladies and Manyard only ran 10.  We met up with Kelly & Dave again around mile 12 and finished up  the run together.  I wanted to drag out those last two miles, but Kelly and Susanna wouldn't leave me behind and kept me company those last 3 miles (at my lagging pace). By the time we finished, Dave (the 100 mile ultramarathoner) had run 30+ (just another Saturday for him).  Kelly, Susanna & I --18.  But Kelly was going home to run another 7-8 with Scott (to make another 26 mile Saturday), and Teena had run 18 too, but at a 7:30-8 m/m pace.  Next week they're all running 22 (I've got 14 on my agenda).  Man I'm such a lightweight. But I did feel  really strong and I could have even pushed the pace a bit and gone a little further.  But it was a pleasant run.  I'm grateful for running friends and to hear what they talk about.  After the run, we sat in Teena's car eating oranges, bananas and hot chocolate (thanks girls!).  And RAD showed up to say hi.  It was so fun, those girls know how to make a running party. I never showered after yesterday's (easy) workout, so I really deserved a bath.  When I came home I sank into the most delicious hot tub (made even more delicious because I had to drive home in my sweaty cold clothes and was chilled ). I eased myself into that hot water and said a  prayer of thanksgiving for warm water that runs right out of the faucet in my bathroom.  God bless America.