Deni-Hill

Ah, the return of the early morning workout. I missed you.

 5:30am came fast yesterday.  I didn’t get into bed until 9:30pm the night previous and didn’t fall asleep till after 10:00pm, which is a really late night for me. When you run a lot sleep becomes integral to the recovery process. They say that for every mile you run during the week (I ran 60 last week) you should sleep an extra minute each night. Moreover, I should be sleeping an extra hour every night on top of the recommended 7-8. Needless to say the 7.5 hours I ended up getting did not feel like enough.   

I had an easy 5.5 miles to do yesterday. I headed outside for my run and it was borderline cold out when I started! I felt great for the first mile and actually had thoughts like “I bet this will be my best run ever”… then came the big hill. 

Picture from Google Maps. Does NOT do its insanity justice.

 You see, there are two routes I can take from my apartment. One route is flat for about a mile and then gradually uphill (some parts steeper than others but mostly just a 1% grade) for about 3.5 miles before a nice big downhill for a half mile and the rest is flatish. The other way (the way I went yesterday) is flat for about a mile, gradual include for about a half mile and then a HUGE FREAKING HILL for about .5-.75 miles.

However, after that hill it’s downhill for the rest of the run. So I always try to decide if I want to slowly torture myself (the first route) or have a short, but incredibly difficult hill encounter (the second route).  

Somehow I always brainwash myself into thinking the hill isn’t “that bad” or “that long” and think only about the nice long downhill after it. On paper it doesn't look so bad! The grade isn't very steep and it's only a mile... all reasons I convinced myself to choose that route yesterday morning. Well of course, like always, it kicked my trash. It took me from feeling “great” in my first mile to “I think I need to stop” during my second. I eventually pulled it together and pushed through the hill and enjoyed the rest of my downhillish run.

Once I got on my bus, my 7.5 hours of sleep caught up with me and I fell asleep. Yep, I was one of those people.

This morning the alarm was set for 5:40am and I had a 45 minute tempo run on the agenda. Tempo runs are carried out a few different ways, but are usually described as running at a “comfortably hard” pace for the allotted time.For me my “comfortably hard” pace is about 8:00 minute miles. 

I did not feel great when I woke up and didn’t really know what to expect. Luckily my warm up mile was very easy and before I knew it I was cranking up the pace. I think weird things when I do runs like this to keep myself from looking down at my mileage. Today, I had the song “Good Time” stuck in my head, I made a to-do list in my head for work, made a pros and cons list for washing my hair before work or after work, added up how many miles I’ll end up running this week, thought about what we needed to buy at Costco and of course imagined crossing the finish line in Chicago.

I ended up doing 7.5 miles with my warm up and cool down.

For those keeping track my running "pros" list for washing my hair before work won.

 Tonight I plan to go on the above mentioned Costco trip and enjoying our weekly taco tradition.  Just one more run before my rest day! Wow. That almost makes me sad. I’m shooting for between 8-8.5 miles outside, but I might chicken out since it’s staying dark longer and I’m not a fan of running when you can still see the big dipper.