33- long day, PSA, and other things

Oh man, today was looong and full - just like I like it!  The most comical thing was all of the stuff I took with me when I left my apartment at 5:30am this morning.  I took a pic, but my computer isn't cooperating.  Basically it was two bags of clothes (change into teaching clothes, then running clothes) my swim bag, my purse, my teaching bag, and a cooler with B-fast, lunch, and snack (more on that later).  Annnd, I just finished unpacking it all now when I got home at 8:30pm.  Like I said, looong day!

Soo, my PSA relating to my snack is this: if you bring a yogurt in a cooler for a snack and pack it away at 5am, it will not be cold at 6pm.  Infact, by this point, the cooler will have turned into a sort of oven from sitting in your car in 65 degree weather all day.  You will be hungry and have no snack between running and swimming.  You will also have wasted $1.19.  Not cool.

With that said, I want to make two points that I was thinking about today on my run.  First, it is the absolute hardest, most character building thing for me to run after my jobs.  Harder than long runs, intervals, getting up uber-early etc.  Unless it is the second run of the day or with a group (like a 'bonus') I have the hardest time running after work.  I'm not sure if it is physically because, like today, I have been on my feet for almost 12 hours by 5:30pm, or if it is just mental fatigue from the day but I have such a hard time with it!  With that said/knowing that, I still did not run at 4am this morning because running in the dark in 25 degree temps, basically in the middle of the night, sounded worse than getting to run in the lovely 65 and sunny weather of today.  With that said, I wasn't expecting much out of my run.

Which brings me to point #2.  I was thinking about my blog and although I'm pretty sure I don't have many readers, I hope I am not coming off as egotistic or anything with my posts recently about having good runs.  Honestly, I just get so pumped that I feel like I have to 'share' it.  And no one in my real life understands what it is like to drop pace or just FEEL really good on a run and progress in training.  I know many of you out there know what I am feeling/talking about, so I guess I'm just trying to put it out there to those who 'get it.'  Also, I'm in a place where I feel like I'm waiting for the shit to hit the fans so-to-speak because things have been going well, and I'm always a skeptic!

With that said, and bringing me back to point #1, I ran today.  After both jobs.  I did one of my favorite things though- what I call an "adventure run."  Here's how it works: you drive wherever you are driving (in my case, the 45 minute drive home from my teaching job) and just randomly pull off the freeway and into a gas station or whatever is there, strip down and change into running clothes in the parking lot (being as classy as possible), strap on Garmin, and RUN!  I've always liked a particular road on my drive home, so I got off at that exit.  It was total farm country!  I literally pulled into a restaurant about 1/2 mile off the freeway called "Kosy Cabin."  Lol.  The thing about adventure runs is, you don't know what you will get in terms of scenery and topography.  In my case, it was lots of dirt roads, horse farms, corn fields, rolling hills, and wind.  A nice loop though (and I got to cross the freeway twice, which y'all know I love!)  Buttt, my leggies felt stiff and I wasn't expecting much pace-wise because of the hills.  Like I've said before I NEVER look at my Garmin pace till near the end because I don't like to stress over it.  I figured with my tired legs and hills I was hitting a 9 min/mile pace.  When I was almost through the loop I heard my Garmin beep and looked down to see I had just hit mile 6, when I thought I was at mile 5!  Annd, it was 7:59 mile!  Which, I later found was the SLOWEST mile of my run.  7 miles at 7:46 pace, with very even splits!!! :)  I literally could not believe it.  This new 'comfortable' is going way better than I imagined.  (hense the 'shit hitting the fans' fear!)  I only wish that I had had time to put in sommore miles, but alas, 7pm swim class called and I was still 20 minutes away!  Today's run = beautiful = fun = confidence building.

Swim class = awesome as well.  I was the only one there, so it was essentially a private lesson.  Feels good to be getting better and getting some tips that I can use on my own swims.

Oh man, this post has gotten too long!  I'm wiped and I gotta go get all packed up to do it all over again tomorrow!  Triple Thursday, coming at ya! :)  So. Pumped.

Keep it real out there,
Tmart