Quick Hits for the End of the Week

Look, sometimes I can make things fly together coherently, and sometimes.....Sometimes it's like today.

• On Thursday morning I had a strength session with Coach Nate. Actually this is a strength class for triathletes, but since the running-specific sessions are Monday / Wednesday evenings (karate nights), this has been the next best thing, and completely worth it in every way. My favorite thing about it is the emphasis on Olympic lifting, in which I and my abs / glutes / hammies are firm believers when it comes to core stability (& therefore injury prevention). After some of that plus some mobilization work & plyometric push-ups, he had us do a circuit consisting of 1) plyo push-ups 2) some other barbell stuff 3) sprinting 200m's with a barbell clasped to our chest (though to be honest, after about 1.5 of these I was not really sprinting anymore). This was 1) a great core workout & 2) an interesting experience in general.

• Gaaaaawwwwddddsssss how I did not want to run when I got home Thursday afternoon. Not at all. Not one tiny bit. I don't usually feel this way, but the fact that there are no easy runs for me right now has really begun to wear on my psyche. I got myself out the door by saying, "Well, just put some running clothes on, see how you feel, & if you run half a mile & turn around & come home then the day was not a complete waste." So I did, going in a different direction than usual, and actually got myself through the four "easy" miles I'd planned on without dying or vomiting. Hallelujah.

• I don't know what, but I clearly did something Thursday that *destroyed* my inner hamstrings (did you know you actually have 3 hamstrings in each leg???? True story). Like, sitting down and standing back up was distinctly unpleasant. Add to this the general unpleasantness of running lately. Add to THAT the fact that today was supposed to be a tempo run:
  
  #notthrilled

  God, I was so disheartened. I was so, so close to being like, "Screw it, I can't do this today. I am rehabbing, I am tired, and I am hella sore. I can have a rest day." And then I remembered my mantra from a few months back: Prove you can't. It's fine of you're too tired or too sore or whatever, but you don't just get to say that. You have to at least try. So I tried. And lo & behold, running happened.

  I can't tell you how speedy it was and god knows it was very, very far from a proper tempo run in that a) I was having Garmin drama & thus have limited information about my distance / pace and b) I ran in my neighborhood (because driving to the track on Friday evening means coming back to said neighborhood at a time when finding a reasonable parking spot can take half an hour) & therefore did a lot of slowing / walking / stopping due to lights, pedestrians, blind corners, etc. But really, I'm just happy to have gotten some running done, including some speedier stretches, &, oh yeah, at 4.36(ish) miles, had my 2nd longest run since #apocolypseM2B. In my book, right now, that is called #winning.

• Here is another thing called #winning:
  

  'Nuff said.