Somehow made it...

Decided to stay up late tonight, and thought this would be the best way to spend the twilight. So just to make things clear, I made it through my 4x 1mile workout today. I did 5:37, 5:55, 5:59, 6:10 and succeeded at destroying myself. I was totally spent at the end of the workout. The demons started talking to me after the second mile. They said, "Don listen: you can just take it easy now, you did 2 miles hard and got your heart rate way above your AT, take it easy." I had to tell the voice to STUFF IT, and I did it by focusing on my form. For the second half of the workout I started thinking about making my strides smooth and not waste any energy on "vertical movement." Mentally, starting the last mile was the hardest, but physically the third one was the most painful. I guess it was the fact I knew I had to do one more mile after that made it harder. It was somewhat funny between the 3rd and 4th mile I saw two girls running by me as I was recovering and heard one say "that guys slobber is AWESOME!" Probably should have stopped and got that girls number with that kind of mentality! During my 4th mile I had to battle with a woman on a bike who was going god-awful slow! I pass alot of people on the path, and many times those people are on bikes or rollerblades, so this wasn't that surprising. Unfortunately this time I had to run through patches of sand which made the run even harder and I couldn't seem to get totally past her for 3/4 of the mile. My frustration definitely propelled me by the end, and I'm sure she was just as frustrated with me as I was of her, but I still couldn't help but be critical of someone on a bike going as fast as I am running. This all goes back to my theory that we are all out there trying to better ourselves in one way or another, and there really is no reason to be critical of anyone that is doing work out there on the path. So thank you slow bike lady, you pushed me through that last painful mile, and even though my thoughts of you at the time were riddled with hatred and disgust, you made it easier to push my limits and feel the urgency of "the race" I usually find missing in most of my workouts.

Alright all, it is bed time. Time to put on my compression sleeves, take some advil, and dream of crossing that 26.2 marker under 3 hrs. Visualization... another topic for another post