Excuses, excuses...

My training plan called for 4 miles tonight: 1 warm-up, 2 at tempo pace, and 1 cool-down.  I seriously felt ready to rock it.  My warm-up mile felt easy.  I started out feeling like this:

However, as soon as I picked up the pace, I felt awful.  I just couldn't get into a good groove.  My awesome I-am-runner-hear-me-roar feeling quickly turned into this: 

I am not sure what the deal was.  The temperature tonight was under 80.  The humidity wasn't too high.  The dewpoint was only 69 . But for some reason, I just couldn't catch my breath.  After the first half-mile at tempo pace, I started to break the rest of the run up into half-miles, then into quarter-miles.  By the end, I was counting down the tenths.  I *never* do that, but I just wanted to be finished.   

As I ran, I kept coming up with reasons excuses for why I wouldn't hit my tempo pace for the middle two miles.  I came up with several that, according to my brain, were very good.  One, I started my period the night before last, so I am low on iron.  (Mental note: need to pick up iron supplement, as my new chewy vitamins do not contain any iron.)  Two, my oldest son Hunter woke me up at the God-awful hour of 4:06 AM this morning, and even though I attempted a short nap this afternoon (which was thwarted in part by one non-napping 3-year-old), I was still feeling the effects of almost 3 less hours of sleep than I am used to.  Three, I had chicken and rice for dinner about an hour before my run (not even sure if this is something bad to eat before running, but I used it as an excuse).  However, even as my brain was cranking out the excuses, my body continued on.  The other part of my brain kept saying, "Yes, I KNOW you have some perfectly acceptable reasons to give in right now... but you're not going to do it!  You are going not only hit your tempo pace; you are going to kill it!"

And what do you know?  I did!

 Here are my splits:




My tempo pace is supposed to be around 8:30/mile, so I am not exaggerating when I say that I killed it.  Quite proud of myself!  But wow, did it hurt.  Why didn't I just slow down a bit, and get closer to my tempo pace?  Well, I knew if I slowed down at all, though, that I would likely start walking.  That's how crappy I felt.  So I just went with the crappy feeling and embraced it.  

My calf/shin is feeling pretty good today. I am excited; I found a new way to roll my inner calf, where all of the discomfort is.  Basically I roll it like I am rolling the back of my lower leg, but I point my toe inward, and my leg rolls in so that I hit the inner calf.  HURTS SO GOOD!  (I had to explain that term to my 8-year-old son tonight as I was almost in tears while rolling post-run.) 

Check out my 3-year-old son rolling after I finished:

  He is so cute!  Here's another picture, so you can see his big ol' grin after he finished...

I love my kiddos!  They definitely keep me young... or something like that.