Running is a means and never merely an end

Went to see the trainer today and he gave me a sleeve and told me to go try running today and see how I feel so we can gauge it for the rest of the week. Breck and I did a run to Converse Heights at 8:04 pace, felt closer to 7:45 though. Still, not a bad pace considering how long it's been since I had a workout or a full run. Leg feels pretty unstable, especially when I try to change directions on a turn or go downhill. Breck said she can see me favoring it a good bit when I run, like a light limp.

Warmed up 2 miles with the team. Leg was feeling real crappy. I told Bomar I didn't think I could do a workout seeing as I could hardly do the warm up, so he said to do a 3-4 mile progression run. Really mentally degrading session that was....I planned to start out around an easy 8:30 and slowly cut down to a safe 7:15-7:30. An easy progression, a recovery run even, on any other day. But today I don't know if I ever even went under 8, and I was genuinely trying. I just haven't run in a long time and now I'm both in pain and out of shape and it's just really hard mentally to know that. 

I had some really downer thoughts but I made a decision that no matter what I am a child of the King and I want to worship him through whatever I do. I don't know what it looks like to worship God through an injury, but it sure doesn't look like giving up.

45 minutes on the elliptical. Weights later.

Tried to run. Fail. 45 minutes on the elliptical.

14.5 miles of biking + weights and abs.

3 miles easy at the meet (during some of the sprinting events, lol). Leg pain was the least it's been in a while. Actually felt fairly good! I'm very aware of it, especially on downhills, but it wasn't anything that made me feel like I had to stop. Moving in the right direction!

4 miles at 8:08 pace with Breck. Leg still felt okay! Not 100%, but okay, and I for now I will happily take that!

8:13 average. Leg felt really good! I'm psyched to finally be seeing some progress, woohoo! Weights afterwards.

First run in our new team shoes for this semester! They're not bad, they'll be great to swap out my Vomeros with when they are feeling a little flat. 

Ran to Converse Heights, 5 miles. 7:54 pace! Finally starting to feel more comfortable with my usual recovery paces. Leg still feeling much much better! I just don't want to jump into anything too fast but I'm just so excited about finally running that it's gonna be hard to not overdo it again, so I need to be careful. I'm gonna keep it around 5-6 right now, and then I thought maybe this weekend I could try a longer run of like 8 miles (my usual recovery) and see if I can still feel okay doing that. 

3 miles outside, then came inside real fast and finished 3 on the treadmill. I realized real quick outside that I didn't have enough layers on for the wind chill. Averaged 8:01 outside, then 7:48 on 1% incline on the treadmill. It's funny how treadmills tend to make you speed up a bit faster just to get done a whole grand 30 seconds sooner.

Weights later! Leg felt great today.

Snow run!!! 7:55 average.

Ran with Leah today! Faster than we intended, idk why. Watch died at 4 miles but we were at 7:35 average, I'd say overall we probably ended up about 7:30 average because we kept getting faster.

Longest run since the whole hamstring injury deal happened! Lol at how this is usually my recovery run but this week it was my "long run". I'm getting there! 7:55 average, but didn't feel great. I felt like I was struggling, but its good that I felt that way going a decent pace instead of feeling rough going slow. 

Today we had a tempo on the treadmills in light of the freezing rain and ice outside, but I am definitely not able to do a 6 mile tempo at sub-7 pace currenty....so I was shooting for 4 miles at 7:15. I did 1 warm up, then got into it at 7:13 pace. I felt good for about a mile, and then it started to feel really rough. I was struggling bad by a little over 2 miles, and bumped it down to 7:18, but still felt just as bad. I ended up stopping to take a break after 3 miles, then getting back on to do the last mile (7:08) after I'd recovered a bit (which is somewhat pointless, but if nothing else good for me mentally so I didn't have to walk away having cut the workout short mileage-wise). Blahhhh.

Weights afterwards.

Easy run around the neighborhoods near the high school and on cottonwood trails. 8:34 pace. I was crawling and I felt it, but that's to be expected the day after my first not-easy paced run in 3 weeks.

7 miles easy on my own. I needed a good run by myself today, I was just feeling a bit overwhelmed by all of my classes and obligations! And it was an AWESOME run. It is super beautiful outside, and I went exploring and ended up at Cleveland Park where I picked up probably 4 of the 7 miles. That place is awesome! All the geese were swimming around and everything was suprisingly green. Just what I needed today :) 8:02 average.

Weights later after lab!

AM- 5 miles at Milliken park with the gals. 8:08 average. Strides afterwards.

PM- 3ish solo miles around campus after work!

Pretty sleepy all day today. I need some more sleep!

Tempo with Jamie!! Super encouraging run! I was reluctant to even do a tempo after my disastrous attempt on the treadmill on Monday where I couldn't even hold 7:20 for 4 miles. But Jamie really pushed me and we just run super well together and I was just feeling really good, I think Monday must have just been a funk. We warmed up to Rail Trail, then went down the 2 miles and back. We hit 6:47, 7:00, 6:55, and finished with a 6:37! Averaged 6:49!! I couldn't believe it! That would have been a really solid tempo this time a month and a half ago when I was in pretty solid mid-season shape! I definitely couldn't have done it without Jamie there.

Recovery run in Greenville at Swamp Rabbit Trail this morning with the girls! 8:02 average. We all started together but little by little wound up seperating off into twos and threes, which is to be expected. I ended up doing the last 3 or 4 miles with Jamie, which was once again awesome. Weather was great. Also I got to see my family afterwards!

12PM- 1.5 warm up and cool down + a 4 mile tempo at 7:02/mile with Breck. Felt good & strong, I definitely could have gone faster if I really wanted to but I feel good about it.

5PM- 20 minutes shakeout (2.4 miles) on the treadmill + weights

1.4 miles warm up, then my first workout in like a month and a half!!!! Woohoo! 4x800 at 5k race pace with 60 sec between each. Targeting 3:10ish, but I hit 3:08, 3:07, 3:05, 2:59! Pretty psyched about that. Shannon pushed me on the last one. Felt great! 2x100m strides, then cooled down to 5.

Ran the first 5 miles with Breck, Shannon, and Boat to/on rail trail and back, then Breck and I added on to get to 7 because we aren't racing this weekend. Good, super relaxed run. 8:34 average.

Ran mostly around Cleveland Park today. Man I love that place. Watch died at like 6.5 but I am pretty sure it worked out almost perfectly to 8, by my calculations!

Workout at the track with Breck. 2 mile warm up, then 2 sets of 400/600/600/400, 2 mile cool down. Reps had 45sec between, then 2:30 between sets. Goal was 5k race pace (~93-94 per lap) but it ended up being more like 3k (90/lap). Also, we got progressively faster as we went, which I always like to see. Good little workout!

8:14 average. Tripped on a root and fell and got a little cut up because I was too busy looking all around and above me at how beautiful of a day it was!! Can't even be mad. :) I ran a few miles on the course at Milliken, then went out to Upstate and back down through the course.

8 miles by myself on this beautiful day, kind of just all over the place. Ran into my friend Kassidy at Converse! 7:59 avg.