Tuesday morning speedwork!

Wow, was I lucky this morning (well despite that my day started at 4:50AM)!

Hit the road by 5:05 AM to get my butt downtown to meet running friend, CV.

As I parked my car there were two things I noticed.  Wow, it is warm out and it is pretty windy!  After dropping my stuff at the gym, CV and I headed out (me in shorts and a tank  :-) ) for our run!

Despite the total darkness, the weather very nice for running.  Thankfully it was mainly a cross wind that seemed to hinder us more on our return trip on Marginal by the Lake.  After an easy 2 mile warm-up and a stop at the best downtown bathroom (BLA) we started into mile repeats.

I was really hoping I could try to stick with CV and her goal was 6:20 for each.

As we started into mile one, I could not see my garmin pace but it felt fast.  My Saucony Tangent shoes felt light and my feet felt good.  As we came into the lit area of marginal, I was happy to see we were right on pace and managed to cruise to a 6:18 for Mile 1.  Ouch!  Only 3 more to go, but 3 more at that pace...double ouch!

We walked a bit to let our heart rates drop and so I could quit gasping for air and into number 2 we went.

As I ran and pushed myself to that place where your body wondered why you would torture it at that hour when I so should be sleeping, I kept thinking, "HTFU, you can do it...this is all mental, just hold on!".  Then the last 100 yards was uphill to the finish...so mean!  6:22 Mile 2.  Well given the hill, I was pleased. 

Another short walk and some more whining and some "Ouch, that hurt!" and it was go time again.  Thankfully we started down the hill and the first 100 yards felt nice and easy but then back to having to focus, singing in my head and telling myself it's all mental, don't give up.

You know what I hate?  It is looking at the garmin hoping you only have like 1/4 mile left and seeing you are only at 0.4 mi of the 1.0.  Drat!  Pace at 6:25 (too slow).  Double Drat!  And I am dying!  Yet, what a difference in running with a friend.  I wanted to stay with her and she is even sick...suck it up!  Guess I need to pick up the pace while I am at it so I sped up!  Ouch, I am breathing so hard!  Pleading to hang on in my head and counting down, finally I made it.  6:23 for Mile 3.

The goal was 6:17 for number 4 to hit the 6:20 avg.  Oh this is going to hurt!  I tucked in as we ran around the curve and into the pitch dark street.  I could not see my garmin if I tried.  I did not care.  I did not have the energy to look.  So tired!  I am sucking wind and just begging for the pain to come to an end.  When when is this going to end????  Did I mention these last 2 miles seemed to be more into the wind????  Oh I really want to stop but what if that messes CV's workout up...HTFU!  Finally the heavenly beep came and we were done.  6:25 :-( a little slow, but given the wind and that we could not see our pace, not bad!

As we trotted our 2 mile cooldown to complete the 8 miles I was feeling so thankful!  Thankful to be back running!  Thankful to have a good friend like CV to push me as lord know I would have probably been done after 1 by myself!  Thankful to have strung together 4 pretty decent mile repeats.  And thankful to have such a beautiful morning to run!

Then I went to the gym to stretch and lift for an hour before retiring to the shower with my butt officially kicked!

My concluding thought of the morning was that I give so much credit to fast runners that I look up to.  So many of them push themselves incredibly hard on such a regular basis and just really deserve credit for how hard they work.  Putting the effort in is not easy and speed often really comes at a price of a whole lotta work!