Mmm. Humble Pie

I knew that today wasn't going to be my best day. There has been some job and personal stress over the past few days. It's been the kind of stress that causes me to lose sleep and eat chocolate. Neither losing sleep nor eating chocolate make me faster. Those are my excuses today.

Matt came over and we ran over to Athens High School. The plan was for 5 x 1200m repeats at 5k pace. Yeah, thinking about that workout hurts just a little bit. Doing it hurts even worse. We did about a 3.5 mile warmup and then the 5 repeats with a 400m recovery jog after each one. We ran about 10.25 miles total.

1. 4:26 (This isn't so bad)
2. 4:21 (Um, this one felt different from the first one)
3. 4:25 (How can I do two more?)
4. 4:31 (Yuck... I can either quit now or puke)
5. 4:21 (Well, I didn't eat breakfast, so I only dry-heaved)

I'm disappointed in those times. I wanted them all to be near to 4:20, but I just didn't have that kind of ability today. Matt left me behind on the 4th one. I think he ran it in about 4:20. I wanted to keep up with him, but I was seriously battling nausea.

Without a partner, I would only have done 4 x 1200s today. Matt and I have this thing where that if I wimp out of a workout, he'll call me by my wife's name. I'll do the same for him if he wimps out. I had a choice to make -- puke or be called by my wife's name. I ran that last 1200 hard, especially the last 100 meters. As soon as I stopped, I was dry-heaving. I was glad that I didn't eat breakfast before the workout. But he didn't call me Leigh (no offense, honey). :)

I'm glad I did today's workout. I'm glad I have a partner who'll push me beyond what I believe I'm capable of. (Actually, he pulled me today.) I recognize that today's workout is not an easy one, but I expected this level of effort to result in faster splits. Humility does one good. I have some work to do to reach my goals.