Today I woke up at 5:00 hoping to get my run in right away and have some quiet time this morning to just read. I decided to close my eyes for 3 more minutes and those 3 minutes turned into an hour. It was a bad night of sleep as one of our dogs had to have surgery to have a bump removed. Simon has one of those funnels on his head and he was up all night running around the room running into things trying to get to his stitches. It was a long night. Anyways, I finally got out running around 6:30 and the plan for today was to run 4 miles with 2 miles at my HMP of 9:09. I ran the 4 miles in 35:49 which is a 8:56 mile pace. I was faster than the 9:09 pace, but I really felt like this was an easy pace. I would love it if I could keep this pace for 13 miles, but that has yet to be seen. I love this Garmin Forerunner as it told me I ran an average speed of 6.7 mph with a max speed of 8.1. Yesterday I was exactly .1 faster of an average of 6.8 and max speed of 8.2 on my 3 mile run. I really wish I had this watch earlier in my training so I could see my speeds and heart-rate on the days that I felt like I really pushed myself hard. It would be interesting to know if I truly did or not. I think this watch will help figure out where my threshold is and how hard I can push.
I will be honest and admit that the workout from yesterday has made me incredibly sore. I cannot think of the last time I did a body weight circuit where I felt this sore. My whole upper body is sore. My back was really tight after my run. But, it is a good sore as I know I need to continue to work on these exercises to prepare for the Urbanathlon. My calves are also pretty tender. My legs just feel tired. I don’t like this week of running everyday for shorter distance. I know it is a recovery week and I added the extra day of running on Monday, but my body needs those three days of rest. I run again tomorrow making it 5 days in a row. I have a 4 mile run that is to be easy. I am really going to try and force myself to run slow.
I leave with this quote
“The easiest thing is to react. The second easiest is to respond. But the hardest thing is to initiate.”
As school starts next week it will be easy to become tired and find excuses to not continue to train or do my best for my running or my job or my family. I can react all I want to my surroundings by becoming irritated or having fun. That is a choice, but is easy to do nonetheless. I can also respond to all the emails and the calling of my name at work or my own kids calling my name for this or that because that is also my job. The most difficult thing will be to continue to wake up in the morning to INITIATE a purposeful day. To initiate my training program to help me achieve my goals. To initiate the learning process with my students to get them excited about learning, reading, and just being alive everyday. Those things are hard. I can wake up grumpy, find an excuse to not train and just go through the emotions of my job. Or I can initiate a positive attitude, make kids laugh in the hallways and let them know that goals are achievable with a little hard work.
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