The Post I Wanted to Write

So, where were we? Oh yes, I was going to kick ass doing my 6 mile (plus warm up and cool down) tempo run by myself on Wednesday.

I'll be honest, when I got home from work on Wednesday I was tired. I was tempted to skip the run. I've read that nothing you do less than 10 days out from a race can really change anything. I thought about just doing a 6 mile run and not worrying about speed.

But then I thought of all of you and how I didn't want to write that blog post. That I wanted to write the "I kicked ass" post instead.

So, I kicked ass.

Granted, this 8.5 mile run wasn't as fast as when I did it last time with my running group gals, but I was still faster than my goal pace during my tempo miles. I just took it a lot slower on the warm up and cool down :-)

I should have written this post right after the run because now I honestly can't remember much about it. My warm-up mile felt tough. The rest of them, though, felt pretty okay. I ran the same route I would have run on Monday and I didn't even stop for a drink at the park. Just kept pushing through.

I noticed, though, that I was having difficulty settling into one pace. Every time I looked at my Garmin I was either running an 8 minute pace or close to a 10:30 pace. It wasn't until at least mile 3 that I started to find a groove. And even then when the Garmin would beep at each mile I would look down at it, realize I was going faster than the prescribed tempo pace (9:11, FYI) and try to slow down. Didn't work. And mile 2 got all screwed up by having to stop at the world's longest stop light. I hate that light. The Garmin claims I did mile 2 in 9:04 but I was stopped at the light for at least a minute.

I was fairly wiped out when I got home but I still managed to find the energy to make dinner before collapsing into bed. Overall it was a good run and was just one more step to helping me overcome some of my mental hurdles.

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Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 626 ft Location: Forest Park, IL Elev. Gain: +0 ft Date: 04/21/10 Up/Downhill: [+45/-45] Time: 06:05 PM Difficulty: 2.4 / 5.0   Weather: Partly Cloudy   42 F temp; 76% humidity   42 F heat index; winds NE 15 Performance Distance: 8.50 miles Time: 1:19:04 Speed: 6.5 mph Pace: 9' 18 /mi Calories: 1017 Map   Elevation (ft)   Pace (min/mile)   Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 9' 55 +0' 37 6.0 -0.4 +3 ft 2 10' 06 +0' 48 5.9 -0.5 +6 ft 3 8' 44 -0' 34 6.9 +0.4 0 ft 4 8' 54 -0' 24 6.7 +0.3 -9 ft 5 8' 58 -0' 20 6.7 +0.2 +10 ft 6 9' 02 -0' 16 6.6 +0.2 0 ft 7 8' 59 -0' 19 6.7 +0.2 +3 ft 8 9' 59 +0' 41 6.0 -0.4 -13 ft end 10' 28 +1' 10 5.7 -0.7 0 ft Versus average of 9' 18 min/mile

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