The Good, The Bad, and The Sweaty

The past few days have encompassed all of the above - a little bit of good, a little bit of not so good, and a whole lotta sweat.

My attitude going into yesterday's run was pretty dreadful.  Reason one being I was just really tired and didn't want to move my butt off the couch.  Reason two being that mapmyrun.com no longer let's me see the elevations of my mapped routes which means I go into my runs having no idea what I'm in for.  I know Becca you are shaking your head right now, but I'm OCD (and scared of hills), I need to know these things ahead of time.

Garmin told me the elevation gain was less than 100 feet and I'm pretty sure it was lying.  My calves and quads beg to differ with your elevation measurements, Garmin.  Anyways, it turned out to be a pretty great route and I was in my I LOVE RUNNING zone after a mile or two.  Back to back five milers, check.

11:48 pace, what a speed demon.

That brings us to the good ol' Tempo Thursday today.  We all know I have a love-hate relationship with tempo Thursday's.  Well, once I saw the email about tonight's workout my Debbie Downer came out and let's just say I didn't have a whole lot of love for tempo thursday.  Mile repeats at tempo pace?  Eek.

One thing that did get my excited about tonight?  Getting our sweet training shirts:

pumped.

Even better?  They're hot pink - it's like they were designed with me in mind.

front

back

The awesome shirts served as a little bit of a pump up for the tempo workout looming ahead of me.  After a mile warmup, our task was to do three one-mile repeats at a pace 60-90 seconds faster than our usual pace.  That meant my goal was to keep my pace between 10:30 and 11:00.  Oy vey.

I told myself I would be happy if I ended up closer to 11 and didn't expect too much more from myself.  The lack of expectations was especially solidified as I was getting lapped by 7 minute milers.  Commence the negative self-defeating thinking.

One of the BIGGEST things I struggle with is comparing myself to other runners.  I constantly have to remind myself that the competition is with myself, not with everyone else.  Six months ago I couldn't even run an entire mile without stopping, let alone even think about running an 11 minute mile.  That is what I need to remind myself of when I get discouraged for being in the back of the pack.

And it turns out, I sometimes surprise myself and don't give myself enough credit for what I can do.  My splits for each of the three miles were 10:17, 10:39 and 10:48.  Not bad Mollz.

10:41 pace, even with the warm-up mile!

I sure had a whole lot of sweat to show for my efforts tonight.  It was nice and toasty out and apparently pushing yourself yields a lot of extra sweat!

legitimately sweat soaked.

Another thing that comes along with pushing yourself?  Feeling awesome after you exceed your expectations.

tempo thursday, you win again

As usual, I'm so ready for my rest day tomorrow.  We've got double digits on the agenda for Saturday and naturally I'm kind of freaking out.  But I'm also kind of excited.  I'm sure there will be plenty of good, bad and sweaty come Saturday!