What a week!

It all started last saturday with a long 2:30 ride on my trainer. It was a cold, rainy day and having 2:30 on tap for a bike ride I decided to stay indoors. The key here was the entertainment playing on my little TV. Lord of the rings: The two towers carried me through and made the workout fly by.

Having a couple of bad days during the previous week, I had to move my long run from friday to sunday (forgoeing my rest day). Sunday we got up to a torrential downpour that forced me to do the run idoors on the treadmill. I ran for 1:10 and then decided to take the "speed" intervals that were built into the run outside. It was about 32 degrees and it had stopped raining for a bit. My neighborhood is a 1 mile loop and I figured I could run the last 35 minutes of the prescribed time outside. I changed my shorts for my tights and long sleeves and out I went. It was cold but not too bad, until I made the last turn of the loop, heading to the stretch that would bring me past home. The wind was so hard that i could barely move. I did one loop and called it a day. I emailed Liz telling her I am not as tough as I thought I was: YET.

Sunday evening started snowing, which is kind of a big event here in the south. We got about 4 inches and of course everything was closed on monday, because the city does not have the infrastructure to plow the streets and all. I ended up working from home and enjoying the snow day with Megan playing outside making snow angels. I had long ride again on tap for monday morning. 2 hours. It worked perfectly because I did not have to get up extra early to fit it in before work. So the snow day was kind of welcome. It allowed me to not only work from home, but get a few extra hours of zzz's.

During that long rida I also had the company of the Lord of the Rings. The Return of the King this time. Have I mentioned that I LOVE those movies? I have read the books 3 times. Definitely one of my all time favorites.

Tuesday went on fine. I did my run after work and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think after that the week fell apart. On wednesday I had a stiff neck; I tried swimming and it HURT. So after toughing it out for the warmup I called it a day and went to work. When I got home I got on my trainer and felt completely weak. I had to inhale 1/2 a clif bar to feel like I had some kind of energy. Liz emailed me reminding me that I need to EAT; which I have been doing, so I do not know what went wrong. Thursday I woke up with a nasty migraine. It lasted all day. I even took my migraine medicine but that did not help. Of course I went to work and had a busy day. People told me I should have taken the day off, but I have a couple of trips planned for the year (including the family vacation to Disney World) and I want to save my PTO days for those occasions. There was definitely no training on thursday, my head could not take it.

Then on Friday I had a do-over of Wednesday's swim and that did not go so well. Let's say it was frustrating and not a good experience. Work was work and I still had a headache... Kind of a leftover from the prior's day migraine.

Saturday came, and I had a 5k on tap. The goal for this race was to get out there, find the hurt and learn to deal with it. Secretly I had a pace goal/finish time; but Liz not to focus on that; to work the mental aspect of the race. It was a company sponsored event, so I had to wear a t-shirt with the company's logo. Cotton. Not my first choice, but it served the purpose. I am not going to do a race report, but I will say that I was able to accomplish everything I had set out to. I even PR'd by about 20 seconds; running faster than at my peak last year. Definitely a good feeling; and something I needed after the awful week I had.

I emailed with Liz about this and told her it was reassuring that even though I feel slow during some of my training runs; I am capable to put out some nice speed on race day. The pace I ran was not in my real of possiblity a couple of years ago. Heck, even last year I didn't think I could run as fast as I did yesterday! To this day, it still boggles my mind. But you know what? I'll take it!