This week’s training has been intense. It’s only Wednesday night and I’m already feeling the affects and I still have two more days and more miles to run before I can call it a week! C’mon calves and hips and whatever else, you can do it.
Today’s training didn’t go as planned. I intended to wake up a bit early. However, I slept through all of my alarms and by the time I got myself together I knew I wouldn’t make it to the office on time. OK, I thought, now for plan B. I threw stuff in a bag and looked at Abby, my wonderful little brindle dog. She usually comes to work with me and we usually go for a run in the morning before work. She’s small, but she can handle up to 8 or so miles at a time!
I had planned to run with her to work. But that didn’t happen and I found myself in a difficult position: my high-energy dog needed to be exercised and I was late to work. I decided to call up the nearest doggie day care to see if they could take Abby for the morning. They agreed and I dropped her off. It was my first time since adopting my crazy terrier that I’ve needed to find a dog day care. They were awesome and I was able to speed off to work.
I picked up Abby on my lunch break. The staff told me Abby was awesome and they even supplied a report card for her:
They circled the words “Mellow” and “Reserved”. Clearly, they were not talking about my dog. While I don’t relish the idea of taking my dog to daycare, it’s a good card to have in my back pocket. Abby was tired and happy when I picked her up. We went back to work and finished up the day – Abby decided to curl up in her bed in a doggie coma.
After work I dropped an exhausted Abby off and went to the gym. I’m not one for treadmill running, but sometimes it’s a good alternative, especially when there’s hardwork to be done. I find that sometimes I can slack off on a road run; on a treadmill I know absolutely what pace I’m maintaining. When I jumped on the ‘mill this evening I didn’t have any formed plan. I thought I’d just run… After a brisk warm up I decided that my legs most needed some interval training. For the next 40 or so minutes I ran intervals. I did 2-3 minutes at a 6:49/mile pace, sprinkled with sustained efforts at 7:45 min/mile. I kept that up until I felt like barfing and/or passing out.
Did I get weird looks from other gym goers? Yes, absolutely. I’m not a pretty runner and sometimes I breathe loudly. It’s not elegant, but I don’t care as long as it makes me faster. I finished my run with a 1 mile cooldown before staggering off to the locker room. While I was changing my shirt a girl saw my red blotchy face and sweat-soaked hair. She asked me, “What class did you take?”
I responded, “Oh, no, I wasn’t in a class, I was just on a treadmill”
“Really?” she said, “you look like you had an awesome workout”
Awww, that was so nice of her to say. I really did have an awesome workout, even on the treadmill. I won’t ever say that I like running on treadmills, but sometimes I suppose they have their place.