Can't stop won't stop

[Day 132]

There's a lot I feel like I have on my mind but not so much that I want to write down. Let's talk numbers, then feelings.

Today's Workout: PM run, intervals

• 15-20 mins easy WU
• 4 x 1/2 mi @ 10k pace (7:35-7:50) w/ 3 mins rest (jogged the first three, walked the last)
• 4 x 1/4 mi @ 5k pace (7:05-7:20) w/ 1:30 rest (walked these)
• 15-20 mins easy WD

Summary: 7.56 mi, 1:16:28, 10:07 average pace
Interval splits:

• 1/2 milers: 3:53.1 (7:46), 3:51.4 (7:43), 3:40.7 (7:41). 3:51.7 (7:44)
• 1/4 milers: 1:47.6 (7:10), 1:48.3 (7:13), 1:49.0 (7:16), 1:49.7 (7:19)

Hit rate: 6/6 (100%)

Notes/thoughts:

• My stomach was really bothering me today. About 10 minutes into my warmup, I had some pain and nausea started up and I just thought to myself, Jess you've gone to swim practice on so much worse and cranked it out, there's no reason you can't do this. So I did it. With some amount of compromise. I let myself walk half the rest intervals because I felt like I had to to keep the contents of my stomach in my tummy. I felt pretty horrible, would have much rather gotten to just concentrate on the running instead of concentrating on fighting the feeling in my stomach, but you know what, it's been a while I think since I've been really mentally challenged and I always welcome that. I think you need to be mentally challenged regularly to remind yourself that you can dig deep and overcome that so I'm glad I was forced to be tougher today than I am on any other regular day. 
• I was really surprised by how easy the 5k paced 400s came. 1/4 mile is an incredibly short distance apparently. Honestly the first four 1/2 milers didn't feel great compared to last week, but I got through them fine, and I was just worried about not having any kind of speed in my legs but I shot through that first 1/4 miler and I knew I was gonna be fine. I would like to not be walking recoveries in the future but it let me do the important work on pace and kept me from having to throw in the towel early so I'll take it for today. 
• There's something qualitatively different about running at 10k pace versus 5k. It's really interesting to be finding run speed gears because I'm starting to learn the difference with my body in terms of how to maximize efficiency at each pace. The swimmer part of my brain turns on and that's just what it does. It's really amazing to have been doing sports my whole life and still get to learn new things about my own movement and feel those patterns form and shape and adjust as I get better. That's one of my favourite things about exercise and it's really awesome that intervals really bring that out for me when it comes to running.
• I've genuinely just missed working hard and getting my ass kicked by workouts. I feel like I had a lot of intensity the past few months on the bike trainer because that's something I've been really focusing on and trying to improve on, but I haven't been very intense in the pool and I have never been very intense about running. It's just really satisfying to lay everything you have out on the line during a set and then spend the 15-20 minutes of warm down willing myself to not drop dead on the side of the road or in the park somewhere because I'm almost too tired to even want to go home. That's fun, I get a kick out of that. 
• I want to be really proud of what went on today. I don't feel it as powerfully as I know I should. These paces are cake to so many people but this is insanely fast for me and is a level of running that I didn't think I was capable of doing. So I want to be insanely proud and insanely happy with myself. Instead I feel sort of meh because I walked some of the recoveries and I feel like I should've jogged them but I didn't. I don't want that to drag me down but it does. I'm a little too ambitious for my own good sometimes. I'm bad at just being happy when I do a good job. It wasn't a perfect job, but it was a good job and I should be proud. I am trying to just repeat that to myself over and over again and perhaps it will eventually cement in my head as reality. Who knows.

Easy run on the schedule for tomorrow, 5 miles on the schedule, I'll play the turn around point by feel because I feel pretty wrecked from today and I do want to actually recover tomorrow so I can hit another insane tempo run on Friday. In other news, have a running agreement with Henry that I'm going to try and do 10 minutes of core work and 10 minutes of stretching every night, so I'm gonna finish the work I have to do tonight and then go do that. Working hard, staying hungry. Happy Hump Day! (:

Much love,

Jess

Just do it!

I think I have a mental road block against running race pace during regular workouts. Sure, I can do it during strict intervals like mile repeats, and I know there was at least one tempo run in the summer where I did a good job running race pace, but otherwise I just have this huge sense that I can't run race pace during training...I think it's really just mental and not physical. Everything seems totally impossible to me until I've actually done it, then it seems easy. So I've decided that one of the things I'm really going to try to work on is pushing back against this sense that I can't be fast day to day. Of course, I need to balance the fast days with the easier days, but the idea is that I'm trying to teach myself that these mental limits I put on myself don't actually exist. Today was the first step towards breaking those barriers that I've set for myself.

Today's Workout: AM long run
Summary:

• The set was a 2 mile warm up at 9:30-10:00, 3 x (1.5 mi @ 8:00-8:30, 1.0 mi recovery @ 9:30-10:00), variable distance warm down for a total of 10 miles.
• Total: 10.13 mi, 1:32:56, 9:11 pace
• Splits by interval:
• WU: 9:43
• Repeat 1: 8:28/9:40
• Repeat 2: 8:20/9:57
• Repeat 3: 8:24/9:52
• WD: 9:52

Hit Rate: 11/12 (91.6%)

I was really happy with how I did, especially because I chose not to try and go around more difficult terrain or adjust pace based on terrain. In the end I figured it would all balance out and it did and I'm really proud of the effort. It was hard, but actually not as hard as I thought it was going to be. I definitely felt like I couldn't push my legs to do much more by the last repeat, but I got there, and that's what's important. 

I had been really scared of this workout at the beginning of the day. Even during the warm up and during the first recovery interval, I had been thinking to myself that there was no way I could pull this off. But I did, so I guess it just goes to show that having a "just do it!" attitude really does work. And now I know that I'm capable of running a workout like this, which is really amazing to me! Another random amazing thing is how casual a 10 mile workout feels nowadays. I remember when I used to get really worked up for every 10 miler I ran but it's becoming more and more of just a comfortable workout distance for me. 12 mi is still intimidating, but 10 I can do. That is also something I'm really proud of.

I was surprisingly blown out after this workout though. I felt like a zombie most of the day, just tired to the core. I took a nap in the afternoon which helped a bit but honestly I don't feel like I really rebounded from it until after dinner. I'm feeling much better now, but there's only a tiny bit of time left in my day before I need to hit the sack. Planning an early morning so I can get a good quality lift in before the day starts. Got to try to get some studying done now. 

Much love,

Jess