On Your Left Please...: Worst Day turned best Weekend

To follow up on my FAIL on Tuesday I am happy to report that I finally made it to the track on Wednesday morning and did my workout:

5x600: 2:04, 2:06, 2:06, 2:06, 2:07. Those times mean nothing to me. I don't do 600's. But they were close together so that's good.

Because I'm an emotional runner I decided to go to Umstead the next day, Thursday and pound out 7:35 pace on dead legs on the hills for 9 miles in bad heat. link here. That hurt.

So now it's time for tempo Friday. Clearly I did a good job this week and I should feel fresh, ha! Firstly, it was 100 degrees when I ran and secondly, I was beat up from the hills yesterday but I don't care. I had 9 to do with 5 faster middle miles. I planned on doing them betw 6:20-6:30 pace but that didn't happen. I did 3 @ 6:35 pace. AND CRIED, yes cried just for a minute but tears came out. I was LIVID that I bombed my workout and annoyed that I cried at Shelly Lake. Tighten up!

So I called my mom and we decided to go to the beach for the weekend. I wasn't sure if I was going run on Saturday and if I did it was gong to be slow. I woke up and decided I felt okay and left at 6am for an easy 8 miler.

Of course it's never that easy. I was on flat land near the beach and there were tons of new runners to chase! I love chasing people. Here's how my thoughts went on that run:

Mile one 7:44 took a few sunrise pics. This will be a nice easy run.
Mile two: 7:23 hmmm, I better slow down.
Mile three and four: 7:12 & 7:14. Oh shit, I bombed the easy run. Let's turn this into a slight tempo but not kill my legs for tmrw.
Mile five: 6:55 I got some water and took some pics
Mile six and seven: 6:56 & 6:52. I could do this flat stuff forever. But I have 18 tmrw. decision decisions....
Mile 8: 6:20 compromise. I did the mileage just spazed out at the end.

So now I'm happy. I had a half way descent run and was looking forward to my 18 miler in the morning. It was hot at the beach and the only way to not choke on this run was with a 5am start. That was hard. I didn't have my running handheld bottle. No gatorade. No jack juice. I had a bottle of Dasani. Let me say, running with 17 ounces in a plastic bottle SUCKS. My arm still hurts.

I planned on 8 pace. That lasted a mile. garmin here. It ended up being 18 @ 7:30 pace. I didn't have any issues until mile 10. My shoes were soaked. Partially because I ran through every sprinkler I saw but also because it was 90 and very humid and I sweat a lot. So every foot step made a loud slap and water would fling out and leave a shoe print. I had my heavy trainers on and now they were easily triple the weight. It was horrible.

I decided I would not stop on this run. I had to just get it done. I drank from a twist cap bottle ON THE RUN! That was pretty bad ass. But towards the end I ran out of water and stopped at a fountain. I was drenched. It was awesome. I finished up with the last 200 on the sand running towards the ocean. I kicked my shoes off and dove in. That got some looks. lol. I did not care. I stayed in the water for a few minutes and then headed back to the hotel.

2 good rums to end the week. 64 miles this week and one swim. Yay! here are some pics: