Track Tuesday

So, let’s catch up.

Monday evening’s Yoga for Runners went really well! I was much more comfortable this time and just knowing what to expect helped so much. We worked on stretching and elongating the muscles that are typically over used in running and strengthening the muscles that are under used. Definitely a good reminder not to give up on something just because you don’t necessarily like it the first time you try it.

Tuesday’s workout was a 2 mile warm up, 10 X 600M (with a 1:30 recovery), and a 2 mile cool down. My goal range for the 600s was 6:00 – 6:05 pace, so 2:15 to 2:17 per repeat. I modified the workout a little and actually did a 2 mile warm up, 6 X 600M, 4 X 400M, and a 1 mile cool down.

Track workouts can be a bit of a mental struggle for me. Even today, I stayed within the pace range I was supposed to for the whole workout (which tells me that physically I was doing just fine), but I still ended up cutting the workout short. After the first two or three, I tried to tell myself that I would stop at five. Half a workout is better than no workout, right? After I did the fourth one, I tried to convince myself that I could do eight. Somewhere in there I thought maybe I could just do some 400M and 200M repeats to equal 600M, but what I ultimately settled on was that I would still do 10 total repeats, but I would shorten the last four. Whew. I was mentally (and physically) exhausted after all of that run around (get it?)!

I think we are all guilty of focusing so much on all of the physical aspects of running that we can easily forget that a big part of running is mental. Overall, I am pleased with what I was able to do, but I still have been trying to figure out why it is that I “get in my head” so much when I am on the track. Give me a long run, a treadmill workout or even a race for that matter and I am good to go, but make me run around the oval hamster wheel and I am done. So even though I could have done this workout on the treadmill (and I think probably completed the entire workout), I decided to go to the track anyway and that in itself was a small victory.

I met up with a fellow blogger Tuesday morning and she gave me some wonderful tips on how to grow my blog and reach my target audience. Thank you Larisa!

During our “meeting” I tried a new to me drink at Starbucks and it was amazing. I got the orange mango smoothie and it was a very refreshing post-workout treat.

Tuesday evening was group run at Running Wild. They had reps from Topo and Soleus there and we got to test out some shoes and GPS watches. I wore these and this. It is always fun to try different gear out and I really liked both of these products.

This is somewhat off topic, but has anyone else tried a sugar kiss melon? We randomly decided to pick one up at the grocery store this week and it is really tasty. It basically seems like a really sweet small cantaloupe. We really like it, so I figured I would just pass that along.

I hope y’all had a good day! Gotta run!