Made It!

I believe I was way more stressed about this morning’s run than I care to admit! Let me back up a minute. Yesterday, I was supposed to meet bike shop guy to go for a 90 minute tempo ride. The alarm went off at 5am and I swear it felt like I had only been in bed for about an hour! I am not sure what possessed me to check my email on my phone before rolling out of bed but, boy was I glad I did. Bike shop guy had emailed saying something on his bike was broken and he was going to have to miss the ride. YAY…more sleep!!!! was all I could think. I immediately reset the alarm for an hour later and fell back asleep. Well, one more hour didn’t really do it but I got out of bed anyway. My plan was to swim this morning and then bike after work. So I went to the Y and started my swim workout which was basically a disaster. I was doing a ladder and all of my times were 10-20 secs slower than normal. I finished the 4300 yard workout anyway and headed to work. After basically sleepwalking through the first few hours, I finally got smart and had a cup of coffee. THAT WOKE ME UP! I felt really good and managed to stay awake until closing time at 6pm. So now it was time to bike. It was getting late so I figured I should get home right away and go. As I drove past my neighbor’s house, I saw she was out. After 3 minutes of chatting I decided it was way too late to go for a bike ride so I pushed it to today. At the moment it seemed like a great idea!

After hanging out and then tossing and turning for a few hours, I finally got a little sleep. At 4am the alarm went off and I thought “this is it”. Time to get this crazy 3 hour run over with. I was really dreading running this long when I knew how exhausted I had been all week. I was also a little annoyed (OK, a lot) at Karen for making me do this. But, the OCD kicked in, I got on my running shoes and headed out into the dark. I had planned to run an 8 mile loop three times. The first loop was so slow, I think I was sleepwalking again! The second loop was a much more reasonable pace. As I started the last loop, I knew I was going to be able to finish strong so I picked up the pace a little more. I ran the last loop 8 minutes faster than the first and ended up at 7:49 pace for 24 miles. Not bad considering the last 3 weeks! I finished at 7:45am, jumped in the shower and pulled into the Wegmans parking lot at 8:10am – only 10 minutes late…not bad for me…I consider that almost on time . I must have got some decent sleep last night because I was much more awake today. So when 4pm rolled around, doing a bike workout didn’t seem as objectionable as it did the day before. I was headed out to a movie (Eclipse) at 6pm so I had to race out the door as soon as I got home. The ride was supposed to be a tempo but just ended up being a 90 minute easy pace ride. As always, I did not factor in time to eat so my friend brought a slice of leftover cold pizza for me and I got popcorn at the movies (because they were out of soft pretzels)…again – great post workout food (yes – this is sarcasm) !

My friends and I made it to the movie on time and then headed out to Chili’s for a margarita and sliders after. Finally I was able to get some real protein in! I finally collapsed into bed around 11pm and was asleep before my head hit the pillow.