Perseverance or Denial??

(Written Thursday 9/9/10)

I woke up at 4 feeling like half of my face/head had been filled in with cement.  (I think my sinuses are trying to tell me something.)  As I was going about my usual morning "routine", I saw a post on Facebook that really spoke to me:

per·se·ver·ance /ˌpɜrsəˈvɪərəns/ - noun. 1. Steady persistence in a course of action in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.

I made the decision to PERSEVERE despite discouragement and go out for a run before the sun graced the sky with light.  (It helped that I also saw another post saying how "beautiful" it was outside this morning.)  I should have checked the weather instead of taking someone's Facebook word for it...  When I walked outside, the air felt thicker than my nasal passages.  I thought I was going to have to take a machete with me on the run to make a path through the air it was so thick.  (I found out later, the humidity was 95%!!)  Again, I made the decision to PERSEVERE despite the obstacle.

I started running, remembering to behave in accordance with a decision previously made....and "everything" hurt.  I haven't had that sensation in a while.  With the very first footfall I knew it was NOT going to be a feel-good run.  It was at that point that I was extremely grateful to have seen the post.

per·se·ver·ance /ˌpɜrsəˈvɪərəns/ - noun. 1. Steady persistence in a course of action in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.

Yeah, yeah....okay.  I determined to persist despite the discouragement I was feeling.  I couldn't breath.  I hurt (not like an injury hurt, but like a whiny child complaining about being forced to do chores).  And...my conversation with Daisy the other day (the one I haven't talked about yet) came back to mind.  (I'll post on that as soon as I have it all processed in my head.  Well, that might take a while, I'll say I'll post on that soon.)

Anyway...I jogged slowly trying to keep in mind that once I got warmed up it WOULD feel better...at least that's what I was trying to tell myself.  On my marathon training plan, today's run was supposed to be 30 minutes and include some speedwork in the middle 10.  So, I obliged and did some intervals of faster running with 30 seconds walking in between.  ((That isn't really what the plan called for, really I was supposed to speed up for the middle 10 with a steady, faster, pace...but I knew that wasn't going to happen today, so I did what I think is the next best thing.))

After 10 minutes, I slowed down for a 10 minute cool down.  That was the best part of the run.  What's really funny is that I thought I had slowed down to the same pace I had started with in the warm up....but, no, actually, I sped up by a little over a minute a mile!!  Not only that, my "sprints" got progressively faster each time in that middle 10 minutes.   

THAT is the power of speed work....and hills for that matter.

When it was over, I was glad I had done it....but it still didn't feel good.

Thanks for stopping in, come again soon!
:D