Running, running, running. Yay!
Haha So lets talk about that today! Running, half marathon training, all of that fun stuff. 😉 I actually wanted to write about this yesterday because I had a really good run on the treadmill, but my 4 year old neighbor came over and stayed at my house for 5 hours. Holy cow I don’t know how people with small children get anything done! Because I sure didn’t during the 5 hours she was here. Pretty much all we did was color, watch cartoons, and play with the chickens and ferrets. I didn’t get anything that I wanted to do done yesterday (aside from my run, that is 😉 ) but holy cow by the time she finally went home I was EXHAUSTED.
I’m pretty sure this is what I look like every morning. 😉
Anyways, I haven’t been feeling all that great the last couple of days. I guess I’ve come down with a bit of a cold or something. So on Monday I took the day completely off. I did pretty much nothing but sit on the couch and watch TV. Although at one point I did trip over a dog toy and fell pretty hard on my knees. They’re fine, just a little bruised. Haha but yeah, that’s why I’m not allowed to get on the ladder. Or use power tools. Or the lawn mower. And my weed whacker privileges are on thin ice. Hahahaha I’m just too big of a klutz apparently.
Pictures never seem to do bruises justice haha.
Anyway, then on Tuesday I slept in for about an hour longer than I usually do, and I woke up feeling quite a bit better! Still not at 100%, but a definite improvement! But since I did sleep in it was really warm and sunny outside by the time I was ready to run, so I took to the treadmill! Having that option has been fantastic! I’ve definitely been able to do more running over the summer thanks to it! 🙂
So on the scheduled for yesterday was an interval workout. And a pretty tough one too! The hard intervals were a little longer and I usually despise doing long intervals haha. But I did most of the workout despite not usually being a fan (which is really a good reason to do it anyway) and having not felt so great for the last couple of days. I did end up cutting it a little short. I used the last interval as a cool down, instead of running it hard and then doing a cool down and I had to stop a few times to hack up my lungs, but other than that this workout actually went really well! Honestly it was the first time I felt like I was really able to run “fast” (in quotations because fast and slow are all relative. 😉 ) since I did the Running With The Cows 5k back in May. So yeah. It’s been a while.
It was warm and humid that day, but I got shit done! And learned a few interesting things about myself that day. You can read the recap for this race here. 🙂
But all of my slow running hasn’t been for lack of trying. I’ve had plenty of speed work outs on my scheduled but I just haven’t actually been able to accomplish anything particularly speedy. I’m already a slow runner, but holy cow this summer has just felt particularly slow and terrible and terrible and slow. It hasn’t been good. I’ve really just been feeling, well, defeated.
I’ve been particularly worried about how I’m going to do in my upcoming half marathons. Mostly the Longview half. I really want to PR my half marathon time. Like, soooo bad! And if I’m going to do it this year Longview will be the place to do it, since it’s the first of the two half marathon’s I’m doing back to back. And since they’ve changed the race course and gotten rid of the giant hill at mile 2, well, that will really work out in my favor! And that’s all fine and good, but the paces I’ve been running this summer have just been too slow to really make me think that PRing is going to be possible. Grant it I am attributing a lot of that to the terrible weather this summer. So many heat warnings. So many air quality advisories. So much humidity. It’s been bad… But still, I feel like I’ve just been too slow. There is still some time to change that though, and yesterday’s run was a bit of a confidence booster! Now all I need is a good/faster long run or two and I’d feel a lot better about where I am fitness-wise.
Luckily for me, that just might happen! The first day of fall is in 3 days, and according to WeatherBug tomorrow is supposed to be the last really hot day on the 10 day forecasts! Thank goodness! I’m so ready for summer to be over!!
I’m also ready to be done with the treadmill. Or at least less reliant on it. I like being able to run on it whenever it’s super hot out, but I’ve gotten a little bit lazy about it. Like yesterday. I could have gotten up earlier and run outside. Although yesterday I think the little bit of extra sleep really did help me feel better. Although I think I might have gone a little too hard yesterday. I was planning to do another treadmill run today, but I was tired, sore, and just not feeling it. I’m trying to listen to my body, so I skipped the run and did yoga instead. I felt really good afterwards, so I think I made the right decision. 🙂
Whew, I guess that covers everything I wanted to talk about today. Haha all of this thinking about paces and times, I guess I’m starting to get some pre-race nerves. Just a little bit though. I still feel like I’ve got some time to do some more work. 😉
Happy Wednesday!
~Ashley
