Sufferfest...

I guess when I decide to work hard, I don't mess around.

I got off work yesterday and I had every intention of getting my 90 minute run with 8x3 hill repeats followed by a tempo run "in." Was that all one sentence? Well, if you know me and the way I speak, it WAS all one sentence. Hmm, so I came home from work, Dave was post-call and sleeping, so..I cleaned a bit more of the house, played with the dogs and I thought "this is rediculous, GO."

Got in the car and drove to sort of a new spot that I knew would have more "rolling hills." And I ran.....I warmed up way too long--40 something minutes. I found the hill I needed and Dave figured it out for me later, it was a 5.1% grade, not awful, but definitely not a flat surface!

I had to basically run up and down 8 times for 3 minutes. The first two, I was like "eh, no problem." By the 5th one, I was AVIDLY counting down how many I had left. I even started to sprint faster downhill to get the repeats over with.

I totally got a taste of what I like to think of "Ironman Mindset"...which is: Absolutely do NOT think about the "next I have to do ...." meaning, do not think about anything else until you are DONE with what you are doing. Meaning, I was in the middle of hill repeats so I had to push with all my brain cells to NOT think about my tempo run immediately after my hill repeats. So, I didn't. Well, I did a little, then it went away (Mer speak).

Hill repeats accomplished and by this point my clock read 1:25..now, keep in mind my entire run was supposed to take 90 minutes. Ugh. So, I ran down to a primarily flat area (by doing this, I knew later, I would have to climb BACK up the same hill I had just done repeats on to get to my car).

I nailed the tempo run:
Mile 1: 7:57 pace
Mile 2: 748 pace
I have to say I was stoked to be able to do that pace for two miles after completely hammering my legs and not to mention my knees were aching quite considerably.

Wrapped up the run and limped over to the pool for 30 minutes......and it was close to raining and about 60 degrees, but I actually totally was SO excited to be swimming and stretching out my legs. However, I was extremely limited to freestyle only because I tried to breast stroke kick and my legs were like "are you kidding?" So I did some freestyle and headed home!