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November 29, 2005
Glutton for Punishment
Today was awful, just awful. I really do know that it is not possible for computers to have feelings, but my computer at work must hate me. It is constantly freezing up on me and it refuses to print every other time I try to print. Supposedly it did not do this for it's previous user. We have no clue as to why it is so tempermental, but my theory is that it hates me. Other than the computer issues, the phone would not stop ringing all day. It got to the point that I thought I would scream if the phone rang one more time.
Early this morning, J called me and asked what my running plans were for today and tomorrow. I fudged a little and told him short easy runs each day. They are short in my book, but according to him they are not short enough. I knew what he said could have been coming, but I thought that I had gotten out of doing this because the season is essentially over. He wanted me to warm-up, go to a track (not necessarily the one where we do workouts), do two striders, a mile at 90 percent, jog two laps and finish up with two more striders. He also said that my mile should be at least under 5:40 since I did repeats in 5:42 a few weeks ago. This was the call that I pretty much have been dreading all fall. I didn't have to do this today, I had the option of doing it tomorrow, so I spent most of the day unsure of if I was going to do it or not.
When I left the house to run this afternoon it had been raining earlier but didn't seem to be too bad at that point. I decided to bite the bullet and go for it today because it could be worse tomorrow. I took the roundabout route to the high school I went to. It is only a mile from my house, but if you go around the back of the school it is about three miles. About two-thirds of the way through the warm-up, the winds picked up and the rain got heavier. Why, oh why, does this always happen to me? At least the temperature didn't plummet today like it did two weeks ago. When I got to the track, which is a new track in the same place, I discovered a very nasty wind on the home stretch. I forgot about that since it has been over ten years since I ran on this track.
I purposely ran slower on the warm-up even though I felt pretty good. Somehow, once I arrived at the track that good feeling wasn't there anymore. It was dark and kind of spooky. The bleachers kept making noises that were freaking me out. The school backs up to a development, so I kept thinking that some kids were out there smoking pot or something (of course, there is an odor that goes with that that I didn't smell). My mile was terrible. The wind was knocking me around and the track was slick, one of the turns was covered with wet leaves. I ran as hard as I possibly could, but it was at least 15-20 seconds too slow. It's done now and I ran as hard as I could, so that is all I can ask for.
I did my jog and striders and then headed out on my warmdown. The route that I took to get there was longer than I wanted and not exactly the safest route to go in the dark, so I went a different way. I must not have been thinking, because I kept adding on and adding on, so when I got to the final road that I have to cross to get home and had to stop my watch I realized how long my warmdown was. My legs probably need the extra warmdown, so it might not have been that bad.
I stretched more than I have been today. My body is rebelling at this point from the abuse I have subjected it to recently. My calves hurt just putting them on the foam roller without putting any weight into it. My butt is terribly tight as well, but my calves really take the cake. I know that Thursday's massage is going to be painful, and that is putting it mildly. Again, it is something I did to myself...racing in spikes, what was I thinking?
Posted by Blondie at November 29, 2005 07:14 PM