"What keeps me going is goals." - Mahammed Ali

Spartan Shape-Up, Day 50:

Run Day, today. A beautiful almost-fall morning to head out... like, I was actually a little bit cold during my warm-up walk. YAY! I would sooner be cold, than dripping hot, just standing there, any day.

Almost two months into my official Spartan training, and I am recognizing how far I've come. Mostly because I need to put things in perspective. As a real competitive sort, I constantly look at other people and get frustrated when I can't do that, or haven't done that yet, etc. (which is frequent when you belong to a community of awesome chicks that routinely run 10-12 miles as a warm up... up a mountain.) HOWEVER. Again, I need to recognize that 2 months ago, I couldn't do half of what I'm doing now. Just imagine where I'll be in another 300+ days.

That said, today's run was:

Distance: 2.95mi (where did that other .05mi go? Didn't I clock this route?? geesh.)
Time: 33 min.
Pace: 11.19 min/mi. 

Again, I conquered the big hill right in the first 1/2 mile of my run. AROO. Actually felt good running up that big hill to start... Although it really makes the rest of my run difficult, I've come to conclude. Seems like such a small change, but apparently, it's not... Or at least that's what My Legs say at about mile 2ish. And, incidentally, I just came home and read an article about how it's better to incorporate hills into the middle-end of your run, for just that reason - the lactic acid isn't present so soon in your run, to kill your legs for the rest of it. Ahhhh. Makes sense. However, this is where I remind everyone that I live in VT, and hills aren't really an "option" that I add into my run when I want. They are just a by-product of the terrain. If you want to run from here to there, particularly if you're looking for a route more than 2 miles, you're going to run a hill. And probably a substantial one. LOL. So, in true spartan style (as I recall, don't most the races seem to start with a nice long run uphill? haha), I put my head down, put some angry music on, and plow up the hill. .........And then stop at the top for 15 seconds to convince myself my lungs aren't going to explode...

Anyway. Today's the day that I definitely feel like I could've happily tried out the inaugural ice-bath. However, there's just not time. *sigh* I'm in a wedding this weekend, and picking up people from the air port and running last minute errands, etc. So, I squeezed in my run (go me! no excuses!), but stopping 20 minutes to soak in the ice bath doesn't seem like it's going to be in the cards. It's weird that I'm sad about that....

Alright, my legs are real happy that today is over, because today's run (like the last few runs) was feeling really hard. However, when I look at my times/averages, maybe I just need to get in a different head-space during my runs, because I'm not doing all that badly. Geesh. Positive self-talk, self!

On that note, I'm off... tomorrow is the dreaded Bodyweight workout day.... *gulp*... Squats and pushups and dips, Oh MY!