Making Bets

Monday Afternoon
When training for marathons in the past, Tuesdays have always been a run day.  In fact, it has traditionally been the day I focus on speed work.   These past 15 months, however, Tuesdays have also been very busy ... prepping for and teaching the GGEMS co-op and other homeschool activities for the kiddos ... ultimately, running always gets omitted.

So Monday after Masters swim practice, I told Coach Bob and two of my team mates that I intended on running on Tuesday.  I asked them to check in with me on Wednesday and if I failed to follow through with my goal, I would be required to swim an additional 1600m!  I'm not certain how they would have enforced this - I didn't say my plan was fool proof - but I knew that if I was accountable to someone else I would be more likely to actually get it done.

Tuesday Morning
Because he had a meeting in town at 8 a.m. at the big campus, DH opts to sleep in a little so I'm not awoken at the usual 5:20 a.m.  Instead, Sweetie climbs into bed next to me at 6:30, though she generally doesn't wake until after 7.  These two unusual occurrences threatened to throw my plan off course once again but I held true. 

I helped everyone get their breakfast, enjoying a cup of coffee and 1/2 English muffin myself.  Just as DH was leaving for work, I loaded a movie on the computer (Thank you, Netflix!), pulled on my VFF, and got busy.

As Tuesdays are speed days & track intervals ... that is what I did.  After a 1 mile warm-up at 10:00 min mile pace, I started a set of repeat 800s.  As I haven't been running much in a while, I didn't want to push too hard.  Therefore, my paces were 8:57, 8:57, 8:49 and 8:41.  Now that I write that out ... I realize how much work I have in front of me if I indeed want to qualify.  I intended to warp it all up with a 1 mile cool-down at 10:00 but my right knee started to bother me and I could feel a significant blister developing on my big left toe.  As I was barefoot and using different muscles .. I cut it off at 1/2 mile. 

3.5 miles.  A solid start.

Tuesday Evening
Despite stretching while I read the paper on the floor, I could feel my calf muscles begin to tighten up this evening.  I'll be quite sore tomorrow.