There's a run scheduled for the day: 65 minutes. Two half-mile repeats. Two one mile repeats. All at 5k pace. That's gonna suck, I know this much ahead of time. Yep, on some tired legs with hours of work on them already this week, a 5k pace is going to be no fun to hold. Then I look out my window: pouring rain. Dumping rain, buckets of rain. As it turns out, more rain than has ever fallen from the sky on that particular calendar day in recorded history.
But I didn't know that when I first looked out of my window. No, at that point I thought it might stop. But it didn't. And didn't. And didn't. How much #@!$%! water can fall from the sky? Eventually, it was either get out there in it or not run at all.
So this is really where the rubber (on the bottom of my Vibram Five Finger shoes) meets the road. How many times do people say things like "You're so lucky, you stay in great shape."
Lucky? LUCKY? No. I don't even want to be out here running on a day like this. There's no stinking luck involved. It's just putting in the hard work when you have to, and looking forward to race day, when the payoff will be... wait for it... more suffering! Lunatic thing to do, this Ironman stuff.
So here's my little corner of Hell on Earth today, but I got 'er done.
3 comments:
"Lucky" I have been called that myself. You have probably seen this on my blog but:
"The harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."
I did mile 5K repeats on one training plan: not pretty, at all-hurts. But doing them in the rain?
Way to go, Robin: getting out there when want-to is at a serious low. You certainly have my admiration and you are an inspiration.
Thankyou for posting this. I had exactly the same thoughts today - pouring rain and a 15km run to get out of the way. Got it done but not happy. Good to know I'm not the only one struggling sometimes :-)
I've been following your blog for a little while and checked in to catch up today while I was in serious procrastination mode (putting off my long run). Thanks for kicking me into gear. I decided that I, too, would put in the work even when every ounce of me did not want to and it paid off with a good dose of endorphins. Hopefully, they'll carry me into the 4:30am wake-up tomorrow morning for Masters Swim. I'm racing IMCdA this year, too. It's my first full IM and I'm teetering between sheer excitement and sheer fear...it's a fine line, huh?
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