Killing two birds with one stone

As the title states, I am going to kill two birds with one stone with this post. As stated in my previous post, I did hill work on Friday and then planned to run 10 miles on Sunday with the running club that I have been running with for about a month. I honestly thought that doing hill work on Friday wouldn't really bother me when I got ready to do my long run on Sunday.

I couldn't have been more wrong!!! I was only able to get 6.5 miles in and I struggled to get that in. I just could not pick my legs up due to the tiredness I felt from doing hill work on Friday. After talking with a friend that was finishing up her run, I decided it was best to head in as to avoid risking injury. I was already struggling to get in 6.5 and was lacking 3.5 so I can only imagine what damage could have been done to my body if I pushed through it. I know there are times that you can push through and my body was telling me to stop and rest.

Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed because I didn't meet my goal. Then I quickly reminded myself that is why you train. You find out what works best for you and what doesn't. It is obvious that running hill sprints on a Friday doesn't work for me. On the weeks that I do these particular runs, I will need to do them on a Tuesday or Wednesday where I am able to take several days to recover.

Now on to today's run. I have heard several benefits of doing a tempo run when training for a half marathon or marathon. Basically a tempo run is where you run slower than your race pace. I am 25 days and counting away from running my first half marathon for the year and I have yet to incorporate these types of runs into my training plan. I have done speed work, hill sprints and short and long runs but no tempo. After the way my run went Sunday, I thought I would give it a shot.

I had asked a friend of mine if she was running today and was going to join her if she was. Since she has had a couple days to rest she planned to go a little further and I thought I would go as far as I could with her. Well, my ambition got the best of me. I pushed to go as far as she did and I did what I could. I also did something that I rarely let myself do because I have always felt like a failure for doing so. I have always wanted to run an entire distance even if I was really slow but today I allowed myself to walk. I just paused my run and walked.

To be honest, I was disappointed in myself for walking and then I got to looking around. At that moment I realized that everytime I have stepped out the front door to run, I have always gotten so into my runs that I never actually took the time to enjoy where I was running. And you know what? I did that today and even though my time was not anywhere near where I would have liked for it to be, I thoroughly enjoyed my run. Seeing all of God's creation and realizing I have never stopped to smell the roses sorta speak. It was AMAZING!!! It was like I was given a new pair of eyes and was seeing for the first time. I honestly don't think I have ever saw everything around me like that before.

I am telling you this because I am wondering when was the last you stopped to smell the roses and enjoy everything around you? Taking in all of God's creation. I do believe that when I lace up again it will be different. So until next time.