Trilogy Saturday

I started my day yanking out the garage sale stuff, I'm going to give it a few hours today and see if we'll prosper. Not that I've done a lot of garage sales before buy from my experience, Saturdays are pretty lame. I left Brendan to man the compound while I went to work out. He wanted to earn some money and I swear, that kid is so self-sufficient and could probably survive on his own better than most 30-year-olds I know. He's a great kid; has a great spirit; huge heart; very funny; quite the imagination! Not that I'm biased or anything - but having twins, you can easily view personalities on a continuous basis and I can tell you that Ryan is as individual as any and is built with his own unique qualities (which I adore), but self-sufficiency is not one. Ha. So I left Brendan in charge and he did a great job!

Feeling a tad over the top on the blob-scale due to lack of self-control from whatever stress I decided to conjure up for the week, I headed over to 24-hour today to attack a little of the damage I'd done. With high ambitions but not as equally high energy, I set my sights first for the treadmill. My goal: 6 miles with the middle 4 being at marathon race pace (did I really say 8:26 in yesterday's blog?? Hum). Okay, I can do it! Run the first mile at 10:00. And it wasn't feeling all that niffty and I suddenly think 8:26 is really going to hurt. But that's the target: run through the hurt. Keep running. Don't stop. Don't slow down. Time to get in there and show my mind it's not going to crack when the going gets a little tough. I can run a 8:20 pace (I up the pace some on a treadmill to compensate for the fact that the treadmill does a little of the work for you. there's nothing scientific or even documented on this idea of mine; nope, I came up with that one all on my own); I can run a 10K at a 7:46 pace this shouldn't be so bad. Wrong. I won't say it was ugly but it certainly wasn't agreeable! I stopped after a mile, got some water, a 10 second break, and hopped back on. Repeat next mile like last, 10-second break and all and vow that after this 3rd mile, I will not stop. I didn't. I kept telling myself it was the last two miles of the marathon and there was no way I was stopping so close to the end of a marathon. A little self-coaching isn't my strong suit but I'm taking baby-steps in this whole mental prep work. Finished 4th tempo mile and then ran the last mile at a 10:30 cool-down pace. End of round 1. I think the difficulty with my tempo run today was the fact that my abs are incredibly sore ... from weight training 2 days ago. Pathetic (yesterday, trying to cought was sheer agony. And it's not like I did anything different, it's just that I haven't done any ab work in a couple weeks and I lost it that quickly). Round 2: weights. Not a lot cuz I really don't have a weight plan today and the last time I went to the gym on my own and did some lifting (with a plan), I ended up doing something pretty major. Least we forgot - the ol glute muscle pull. So I did some hammers, some squat presses, dead lifts, hamstring pushups, and some calf raises. Figured those were good for Mt. Evans climb tomorrow. Round 2 finished. Round 3: Swim. I have been to the pool a grand total of 1 time since my return from Boston. Once. I am convinced that swimming is key to get the muscles some good stretching and especially ones that are sore or tired. Mine were both. I only swam 3/4 of a mile and I swam slow! It felt good and I vowed to swim once a week from now until my marathon. After all, I bought new pink goggles the other day and it's time to put them to good use. Round 3 complete. A trilogy: a series or group of three individually complete yet closely related in theme. My theme being a stronger marathon this fall. Yes, my trilogy today is serving my stronger marathon goal. I showered and went home and wrapped up the garage sale. Some still annoying glute pain, which I am now convinced that it's never going away. Ever. And so I'll learn to suck it up and live with it (and stretch it a lot in between)


6 miles run
1 weight training
1 cross train (swim)