wet and dark, feeling like a gerbil

I was bad and didn’t stretch or roll out yesterday. I got a new fancy frying pan for my birthday (yes I am that kind of geek) and was all excited to try it out.  So after I had made dinner I was going to watch TBL but instead I got totally distracted playing with the CSS and PHP for the new design of Daily Unadventures in Cooking and suddenly it was 11pm.  Whoopsie. So no stretching and no rolling out.

My legs were definitely aware that they didn’t get stretched out yesterday and that they ran a fast race on Monday.  I think if it had of been an easy run it would have been fine, but speed intervals were on my plan.   The goal was 9x 400m  @ 9:15  so I was aiming for 9:10-9:20.  Given that I ran 6.2 miles at 9:13 on Monday this shouldn’t be hard right?

It wasn’t hard, just challenging, I was tired and my legs which usually take about a mile to wake for my early morning runs never really seemed to want to run fast.  I was able to make it happen mostly because I know that my training is working, it is making me faster and stronger and giving up on that would be totally lame. To make matters worse it was pouring rain.  Serious pacific northwest pouring rain.  The upside was that it was 12C out (very warm for 6am), and I got to try out my new running gloves, another birthday present.  The gloves were good and kept my fingers warm even when they were wet.

I tried doing the laps on a track near my house. I think the last time I ran on a track I was in elementary school.  It was really too dark to see too much so I used the Garmin interval workouts anyways since it helped me be able to know when my 400m was completed.  Honestly, the track was good because it was flat but it was so boring. I like running and feeling like I am going somewhere.  Plus it was covered in puddles to the point where my stocking feet left little wet marks all over the house when I came home.

So I think I have concluded that I like running intervals outside better then inside on the treadmill, mostly because it does give me that gerbil feeling.  And I have also concluded that the track isn’t my favorite thing ever.  I should, and will try it again when I can actually see the track better. I think that would help.

• Laps (.25 miles by pace): 8:59, 9:10, 9:18, 9:16, 9:10, 9:17, 9:10, 9:24, 9:01.
• Distance: 5.03 miles
• Time: 50:54
• Avg Pace:  10:07
• Cals:  540
• Avg\Max HR: 158/176

healthy meal of the day:

This may not count as strictly healthy, but today’s healthy meal has to be dessert because I found this delicious looking pumpkin coconut loaf recipe.