I have a lot to say but it's late so I'm gonna keep it brief. The day started real bad. Sort of a carry over from last night. I wasn't very productive in the evening, which was upsetting and kept me up late and made me really emotional. I was just dissatisfied with myself, I had wanted more out of myself and wasn't getting it and it was upsetting. I ended up deciding to skip morning practice today because I didn't get to sleep until the wee hours of the morning and it meant I really started the day on the wrong foot. It felt awful to start your day by not doing something that you feel is important to do and feeling like all the blame for that rests with poor decision making from the prior day. It was hard to see the rest of the day as even worthwhile because I knew no matter how well I did with it, the best it could turn out to be was an average day and I wanted more than that. So that was rough.
But then things got better. I went to a doctor's appointment and got a well-woman check up which is something I had been meaning to do for a long time but never got around to. It made me feel like I was being a responsible adult and honestly just the act of taking care of yourself in some way always feeds positive behaviour. Things sort of made a turn for the better from there. I reviewed for my quiz in the afternoon, I hung out with some friends, I attended and paid attention in lecture, it was all good stuff. Then I decided that instead of just taking an easy long run today, I would do my long run with a few pick ups to try and get back into running a little faster than my typical slow. Here's the summary.
Today's Workout: PM long run, 10 mi, counterclockwise loop + Wydown
Summary: 10.44 mi, 1:32:47, 8:53 pace
- The structure was 1 mi warm up, then 3 x 2/1 mi @ under 8:30 for the efforts and under 9:30 for the recoveries.
Hit Rate: 62/68 (91.1%; this includes the missed AM swim)
Notes/thoughts:
- I'm getting back to that place where 10 miles feels like a pretty average day. It takes a toll on me afterwards for sure, but during the run I don't feel like I'm struggling to cover the distance, so it's good to feel really controlled and at peace with the distance.
- 176 cadence average today, killed it. Actually really enjoyed moving faster in general, had a little bit more hang time in the air on my strides and it felt like flying. It was more effort, but it was really worth the feeling of moving faster.
- Third round got rough but I knew going into it that I was going to hit them. I just felt it in my body and I knew it was probably gonna hurt, but I knew had it. It did hurt. I couldn't keep it off my face which made me feel kinda bad but whatever.
- It's worth noting that there was more net elevation loss on the effort miles and more net elevation gain on the recovery miles, just the way the terrain played out, which may have gone into why these paces look the way they do. I definitely charged the downhills to get as much out of them as I could and it played to my advantage today. Maybe running the route in reverse will change these things.
- A bit of R ankle pain on the downhills, knees feel solid though.
- Honestly I wasn't expecting to be able to pull this run off as solidly as I did. I guess I'm in better shape than I thought and the loads of recovery time between my last workout (Thursday AM) and this one (Friday PM) helped a lot.
Long ride w/ Brian and maybe some other people (????? idk) tomorrow morning. It'll be the longest ride I've ever been on by close to 20 miles so uh...wish me luck...Bringing all the food. Okay bed now!
Much love,
Jess
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