I prefer to do speed work on the treadmill, I think it’s a security thing. BUT, there is something about the treadmill in our living room that I’m not as good at doing speedwork on. I don’t know if it’s the size of the room and I feel closed in compared to the huge open room at the gym or the fact that my bed is right around the corner in the next room, but speedwork at the house is hard for me.

I do however like that I can rock the sports bra though and not care if the person behind me is judging my not so perfect love handles. Unless, Cadence judges the handles. I’m not insecure about running outside in the sports bra but something about being inside- I feel like more jiggle is detected inside.

Back to the run. It was pretty awful. I did take an easy week last week- I only took Thursday off from working out, but I didn’t do any two a days and all of my workouts were light. On Sunday, Glenn and I did 6 miles at 7:15 pace and finished fast. That’s not a super hard run for me, but it’s not a stroll in the park either. I don’t think it was what effected my run today, but it could have been a little factor. I think the hard biking that I did on Monday might have been the main reason. That and a poor mental game.

I was supposed to do 8 miles, with 5 at tempo (6:40-6:45 pace). I did not do that. I was happy to see that he only had me doing 5 at tempo. Usually it would be 6. And when I was in the heart of my Shamrock training, I was doing that pace for 7-8 miles of tempo runs. I can run that. But today, I wasn’t having it.

I warmed up around an 8:15 mile and as I hit mile 1, I started ramping the treadmill speed a little bit at a time. (best way to get started on tempos… slowly build up to your  speed… if I go from warm up straight to tempo, it’s bound to feel rough). The slow speed up was not feeling so hot though. Every time I hit “faster” my body was laughing at me.

The goal was to keep the treadmill at 8.9-9.0 speed for the five miles. I started off at 8.9 and half a mile in was not feeling it. I left the treadmill running, and put my feet to the sides and took a drink of water. I need to regroup and reevaluate. As I started running again, 5 seconds later, I debated stopping and fitting this in another time. There weren’t a lot of options time wise and I also had to get in a swim today. And honestly who wants a monster run like that hanging over their head all day? So I just slowed down but kept going.

I slowed it down to 8.5-8.7 for the next 3 miles. (6:54-7:04 pace). It didn’t feel awesome, but it felt a lot more manageable than when I was in the 6:40-6:44 zone. I know what I was running is still a nice pace, and a great workout for me nonetheless but I also know that I am a stronger runner than that right now. With 2 miles to go I was able to hold on and finish between 8.8-9.0 speed. I literally stopped and drank water every half mile to mile or so and let the treadmill run while I did so. I would tell myself “do not stop and drink until you get to at least the next mile and then I’d stop way before then anyway. It’s like I couldn’t stop myself from stopping. This is very out of character. So, I tacked on an extra half mile at the end to make up for any distance I lost when I did that. (which probably only equaled 1.5 total, but since I was wussing out on the speed I was supposed to run, I wasn’t going to wuss out on the distance too.)

I had my kindle out, which is usually a great distraction for me, but I couldn’t pay attention to the book and found myself looking at the time and distance every 2 minutes. It was one of those runs that just creeps by. I’d look down and it would say 2.81 miles and then I’d look down again and it would say 2.98 miles. Since the kindle wasn’t distracting, I tried to not read at all and just zone out. My mind wanted nothing to do with zoning  out, all my mind was focused on was that darn treadmill clock.

I know you aren’t “supposed” to stop during a tempo run. Which is the reason I used to hate tempo runs. No break from hard work. (Somehow I grew to kind of enjoy them during Shamrock training.. not sure what was wrong with me… haha)  But today I did stop because that’s how I was going to get it done. It was stop for 5 seconds and take a drink every so often or stop all together.

I was kind of pissed when I finished. I don’t like not being able to execute what I’m prescribed. It makes me feel like I’m not as good as I should be or I’m not willing to work as hard as I can. It also makes my head go crazy thinking it’s impossible that I could keep even close to that pace for an entire half marathon. But I can. On the right day, on the right legs, with the right mental game, I can.

Then Marshall woke up and I sat on the kitchen floor with him and played. And that’s where my heart really is. I can write and talk about running all day and night and it makes me happy and it’s a huge part of my life and yes I LOVE it. But the little boy who sleeps with the elephant tucked under his arm at night, who never stops moving and has the prettiest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. He can turn my disappointment in myself around in a matter of 30 seconds.

Not every hard workout, easy workout or race is what you want it to be. It’s just not. But you get up and walk away from it and move along, because does it really matter in your life if you have a bad run? There are far more important things to dwell on.

The post Stop and Go. appeared first on Lindsey Hein.

Today, my scheduled run was 10 miles, 6 at tempo for 7:08 pace. As I have gotten deeper into the training though, I have realized I can run these tempos much quicker and still feel in control.

Most of my tempo runs have turned into tempo/progression runs. I’ve done almost all of these runs on the treadmill and like everyone else, I get bored sometimes and a little bit ansy on the mill. The idea of running 6 tempo miles at the exact same speed just drives me crazy. I understand it’s good training for pacing reasons on race day, but I just hate it.

Last night, I told Glenn my workout and he warned me I shouldn’t do the progression thing like I always do, that I should hold true to the tempo workout. I told him I couldn’t stand the thought of running 6 boring 7:08 miles sandwiched in between 2 boring warm up and 2 boring cool down miles. He told me to do the 6 at 6:50 then, but keep it consistent. I liked the sound of that, I liked the challenge.

Marshall woke me up at 4:30am to eat and my plan was to get to the gym right after. I was wide awake when I got up, but there is something about once I put him down and I walk back into our dark room, fan on with the white noise and it’s just so cozy. I crawled back in and debated for 10 minutes, deciding I’d let the bed win, I wanted more sleep. So, I went with Marshall in tow at 8:00am instead of by myself at 5:00am. The sleep was worth it.

When I warmed up today, I got in my head that I wanted my total 10 to be sub 7, which would mean I needed to warm up at a quicker pace. I don’t usually warm up quicker than 8 minutes for my first mile, but started around 7:40 today. I picked up the second mile to 7:10, about the pace for what the original tempo was.

The one thing that will throw off your tempo run, is going from a very easy pace, full speed to the tempo pace. Easing in to the speed is my key to success. 

I’ve been pretty comfortable running around 6:50 pace recently, so I figured I’d go for holding it for 6 miles. At mile 2, I decided to mentally split the 6 miles up in to two sets of 3. The second set of 3 would be faster. When I started the second set of 3, I decided I’d run the last mile at mile repeat pace and then slowly bring the next mile down to the original tempo pace of 6:49.

I kept a quickish cool down pace, so I’l hit my sub 7 for 10 miles goal.

So, yet again, I broke the rule and didn’t stick to the same pace, but really I didn’t come of it much and I only came off of it running faster, and seeing as how this is my kick my butt as hard as I can week, why not. It feels good to work hard.

Splits:

Mile 1- 7:30 (warm up)
Mile 2- 7:10 (warm up)
Mile 3- 6:49
Mile 4– 6:49
Mile 5– 6:49
Mile 6– 6:44
Mile 7– 6:44
Mile 8– 6:22
Mile 9– 6:49
Mile 10– 7:30 (cool down)

Side note- apparently Marshall had a meltdown in kids club and I was paged four times. I guess my music was too loud. The kids club girl finally hunted me down- I was just getting my stretch on post run at that point. This was all my fault because we were way past nap time number one, I thought he could hang on an extra hour… wrong. It’s true, kids thrive on schedules.

On Friday, I have a really tough 20 miles on the schedule, I’m ready for it, but a little nervous… of course. This will be my last BIG workout closing out the last big week before Shamrock. I’ll officially be 3 weeks out. At this point, I’m more nervous about my mental battles than my physical battles on race day.

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