Wednesday Thursday Fun

Wednesday:

Wednesday morning I was stressing over how I was going to get my roof repaired before the rain comes on Thursday. I called my Insurance agent where my daughter works by the way, and turned in a claim. About an hour later a claims rep calls me and says that someone else in claims would be calling me within the next two days. So I asked them what I was supposed to do till then? They said I could pay someone to do temporary repairs. Ok, thats fine but I didn't know any roofers. So I call my agents office back and they give me a name. I called the guy and he answered right away and said he could come look at it this afternoon probably around 2ish. He said if it wasn't too bad he might be able to fix it then too. This was somewhat of a relief as I knew he could at least do something to get me through the rain.

I had to drive over to West Little Rock to take care of some business items and was almost back to Cabot when he called saying he was fixing to turn on my street. I told him I'd be there in 5 minutes. When I got there he had already climbed the roof and told me he could fix it for $125. I didn't know anyone would even climb the roof that cheap. On top of that he fixed a couple old leaks I had on some vent pipes. All this took probably a little over an hour. When I asked him how much again he gave me the amount and said you can just mail me a check. What? Someone that trusts people too? I told him no, I'll pay you right now and I did. Very nice man. I called my agent back and told them to cancel my claim and told them how much I appreciated their referral with this roofer. So, at least that problem was solved.

Other work issues continued the rest of the afternoon so by 5:30pm I was still working. Annette asked me if I was going to run with them but I said I probably wouldn't. At that time I just wanted to chill. After getting home and taking about a 30 minute break I was ready to do my workout.

I decided to try something different and do the plannned Tuesday night clinic workout on the treadmill. I had never really done specific speed work on the treadmill so this would be a first.
I started out with a 1 mile warm up run. Before I was .3 into the run I thought about quitting as my left foot was hurting. I think it may be a combo of plantar faciaitis/achilles. The good thing was I didn't quit and after I warmed up the pain went away. The first mile ended up being a slow 12:23.

I was doing the Intermediate workout so next up was a 1x800 @LT pace with a 3 min. rest. My lactate pace is suppose to be about a 9:36 pace. I ended up doing the 800 in 9:00 flat. Its kind of hard to figure out pacing on a treadmill as everything is set in MPH and not pace. I had a pretty close idea but the real time/distance would tell the story.

Next up was 2x1000 with 3 min. rests at LT pace. Well, I figured these wrong in my head and ended up running 2x1125. First one was 9:04 pace, a little fast. The second one was 9:51, real close. I knew I was running pretty fast but I really had no way to know what my pace was on the treadmill until after I got finished and figured it all up.

Still not done, I had 2x400 at interval pace. My interval pace figured to be 8:56. Much faster than LT. Somehow the first one was way too slow, 10:40 pace. Not sure what happened here unless I missed stopping my watch or something. The second one was better with a 9:12 pace. I finished with a .5 mile cool down @11:12. This gave me a total of 4 miles with a 10:08 average pace.

After looking at my splits I was pretty happy. My speed was coming back. My heart rate was coming down. I might be able to run again after all if the old age pains would just go away. No pains from the right leg that had the stress fracture. I was happy. My run accomplished something even if it was on the treadmill.

Thursday Night:
The weather kept me in tonight. Rain, sleet, cold. Not the best running weather especially when its dark. Annette decided to not even run tonight. She didn't need to. She had done 8 miles last night. I was determined to get at least 3 tonight so I opted for the dreadmill again. I really didn't have a plan, other than I wanted 3.1 miles and I wanted it to be fast. So my plan was for a 5k tempo run.

I started with about a 5 minute warm up walk then went into a slow run. Again, my foot started hurting. This time I stopped the run and walked a little more. Then I started up again and started cranking up the speed. One thing about a treadmill, when it gets boring it is so boring. Nothing on tv. No good music going. How could I run 3.1 miles like that?? Well I couldn't. I had to break it down. I think thats the only way I can get through the treadmill. I think I ran half a mile then walked about 30 seconds then really cranked up the speed. When I hit the first mile I hit the lap counter on my garmin. I have my 305 set up as a stop watch/heart rate monitor for the treadmill. Wish it would tell me pace.

Second mile I'd run fast then slow down some. My legs were pretty tired from last nights speedwork. At times running fast seemed to be easier then running slow. To make things harder, it gets pretty hot upstairs where my treadmill is so its like running in the summer. I have a fan going but after a mile thats almost not enough. Mentally I was struggling to get this workout done. Last night was so much easier. I think doing intervals is the only hope for the treadmill. I finally got the 5k done. The forst couple miles were decent times, the third one I just struggled through. Not that I couldn't do it, it was just boring and not fun.

Here are my splits:
total miles - 3.1
time - 32:50
Avg. Pace - 10:35
1- 10:14
2- 10:11
3- 10:57

Much improvement in my times this week from last week so maybe I am almost back.