A Tempo Run Can Be Soooooo Mental

So after a very successful 10 miler yesterday I had planned a tempo run and some TRX and strengthening today. Well, with 3 sick kids all day home from school and a 4th home at noon working out wasn't going to happen until later in the evening. I don't know why its so hard to motivate later but man today was hard, I'll set the stage.

After feeding all 4 kids my mom in law was kind enough to come over at 5p to I could head to the gym do my run and then get to my first Aid class by 6:30p. I got on the treadmill and did my normal warm up starting at a 9minute pace working my way up to a 8 min pace by 12 minutes and holding that until I hit 2 miles. Then I did some strides at 80% of max with a little walking inbetween. Well, during my warm up I wasn't feeling too frisky, i kept on trying to tell myself, " I can do this", " my legs don't feel this bad", " maybe I'll just do it tomorrow and just stretch", " okay, I'll see how my legs feel after the strides and if there okay, I'll just try and if I have to stop I will and do it tomorrow".

What is this bullshit, I was pissed at myself that I was even questioning me doing this, I had to snap myself out of it. My tempo was simple, hold a 7:45 pace for 20 minutes with a 1/2 mile ( broken up anyway I wanted it to) at a 6:30-6:45 pace. Well after the strides I felt pretty good so I said, alright, what the hell. At 1% incline, 7.7-7.8 on the treadmill I ran, feeling pretty good, I did 1/4 mile repeats at the increased speed of 8.9 to get to the 1/2 mile, but I did have to go down to .5% on the treadmill at 18minutes but I finished then cooled down and completed 7 miles in just one hour.

I know I was tired from being with sick kids two days in a row and coming off of a very busy weekend and I do hate running hard at night, my GI tract doesnt like that, as evidenced by my post run blues in the bathroom, but I finished it successfully and its another good one in the bank. I didn't get to the strength portion but I'll fit it in two times this week when I can. Anyway, time for some tea and bed.