A brief conversation

Whew.

What a morning! I just dropped Josh off at the high school. He is on his way (along with the rest of the track team) to Track Regionals. To get to Regionals will involve a 6-7 hour bus ride. BLECK. Competition is tomorrow and Saturday and they should be home late Saturday night. The trip home should be "shorter" (more like five hours) because Yellowstone opens to traffic tomorrow and not having to go around the park saves a lot of driving time. I remember in NY when a "far" away sporting event for school was like 15 whole miles. Playing sports (and coaching!) in Wyoming has it's challenges for sure.

But hey - here is a pic from my running route this morning. (I took the pic on my way home from dropping off Josh). I do so love the mountains. I don't ever want to live somewhere without them.

I had a challenging workout today. I was up at 4am as usual and did my strength training routine. (I have been getting a lot of questions about my core/strength training. I outlined it all in detail in this post here. But the short version is that I do a core routine three times a week, a strength routine twice a week, and a flexibility/stretching routine every day. Strength and core routines are always first thing when I get up, before I run, or else they don't happen. Flexibility/stretching is always after I run, usually with Noah climbing all over me. I take two days off from the cross training and those are my long run days and my toughest speed workout days). I am a huge believer that to be the best runner you can be, you need to be STRONG and fit all the way around, so I am very dedicated to my cross/strength training.

After my strength routine I drove into town to the high school and parked, and then took off on a 10 mile run. The goal was a steady pace about 8:00, and I ran a 7:50 average pace with pretty even splits ( 7:49, 7:52, 7:56, 7:55, 8:00, 7:48, 7:37, 7:47, 7:51, 7:49). Once I finished the 10 miler the plan was to hit the track for a 4x800 workout (which is why I started and finished the run at the high school).

I felt good on the 10-miler but when I started that first 800m interval my legs and my brain had a conversation that went something like this -

Legs - "Um hey - I thought we were done."

Brain - "Nope. NOT done. You still have a track workout to do."

Legs - "But we just ran 10 miles at a decent pace. We are tired."

Brain - "Tough crap. It's only four 800's. Suck it up."

Legs - "But... but...but... we are tired."

Brain - "And we are running fast anyway."

They weren't my fastest 800's ever, but considering I had a good 10 mile "warm up" and that I am at the end of an 80 mile week, I will take it. They were consistent and despite some initial leg protesting, I felt pretty good throughout. 13 miles total for the day.

800 Splits were - 2:57 (5:58 pace), 3:01 (6:05 pace), 2:56 (5:56 pace) and 2:56 (5:56 pace).

And now I am tired.

While I go put my feet up and enjoy a tiny bit of quiet before the kids get home, here is a smile for you. It is only 30 seconds but it definitely made me laugh. I love Brooks! (And this would definitely work on my kids!) :)

Run Happy!