Week 8, Key Workout Run #1

Scheduled Workout: 10-20 min. warm-up, 1 mile (400 m ri), 2 miles (800m ri), 2 x 800m (400m ri), 10 min cool-down

Actual Workout: 10 min. warm-up, 1 mile (400 m ri), 2 miles (400m ri), 10 min cool-down
Total Run: 4.5 miles in :36:46 min. @ 3:45 p.m.
Total "Laps": 18
Settings: Avg. Speed 7.3, Avg, Inlcine 0.3
Average Mile: 8:13 min/mi

As much as I have been enjoying my recent treadmill speed workouts at the neighborhood YMCA, this afternoon's abbreviated run there may be my last for a while. Though I avoided the urge to run outside in sixty degree weather in favor of focusing on my speed work (which is easier to accomplish in a disciplined manner for me on a treadmill where I can control the pace and distance--no forearm computer have I) I came up against something that I struggled to overcome.

I can handle the fact that there is zero ventilation in the "cardiac theater," and the idea that I am exercising in what is in effect a concrete box, but apparently I had no stomach for what was thrown within my field of vision... I just couldn't shake the entertainment black hole that is the Ellen DeGeneres Show. There wasn't even any volume as I wasn't wearing a headset, but even reading briefly the captioned, overly cloying "interview" with the equally vapid Jonas Brothers drove me to the brink.

Marathon Training gods... forgive me, but I took all the preening I could and finally made the decision to leave--I'll do my best to make it up later this week!

Breathe in, breathe out… YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!