better than...

yesterday morning i had my alarm set to get up for a pretty big run. everything was set out like usual, clothes in the bathroom, garmin and headlamp in the kitchen, and the coffee pot was set. for whatever reason when my alarm started going off the next morning i just could NOT get up. i hit snooze a million times (which always kind of makes me laugh, if i am not going to get up why not just reset the alarm so i can get some restful sleep instead of torturing myself through an hour of re-hitting the snooze) and before i knew it, it was 6am.

i laid there for a few minutes debating what i was going to do. i could just postpone my run until after work, but i also knew there was potential for me to get stuck at work late which would just stress me out. so i sucked it up, got out of bed, got dressed and put my shoes on. i figured any run was better than no run.

i made it out the door for 6 miles. my legs didn't feel great, i felt tired, but i got it done. i added some strides into the later miles to get my legs feeling better, and you know what? they did.

6.0 miles/54:43/9:07 avg pace

this morning i had another early morning date with tara. originally i was going to do 6 miles, but decided that since i did my 6 yesterday, i would do the longer run today. i WOULD get up since i was meeting her, then i could do my warm up miles with her and then do some speed work.

my alarm went off at 4 and i was out of bed 10 minutes later. we met at our usual spot and ran around in the dark. you are probably going to get sick of me saying this, but it is SO nice to have someone to meet. we have very nice chats running around the dark streets and very early hours in the morning, and its fun!

i was being a whiny baby this morning, not wanting to do my speed workout. i was thinking up excuses like i could just do it later that night on the treadmill, or i could somehow switch it to the next day. i just was not in the mood. i was tired and i was hungry. after 6.6 miles with tara, i left her at her house, and headed back out for some more miles. i figured at the least i could just do a medium-long run and get the miles in. i took a gu to help give me some energy for the rest of the run and it seemed to help.

it was light out by this point and i could jump on the trail, so i did. once i got there cold air rushed over me, i turned my ipod on, and thought "ok aron lets just get this done". the schedule calls for 6x1000m intervals this week, but i wanted to do some more lactate threshold (LT) miles because i feel like they work for me. i told myself 4 LT miles is better than no LT miles and off i went.

LT miles:
1: 7:46
2: 7:38
3: 7:36
4: 7:32
avg: 7:38!

i felt great and kept being surprised when i would look down and see my pace. i probably could have kept going, but i was already going to be late for work and knew i would have put in quite a bit of weekday miles in already. i did a quick cool down back to my car to finish off the run and round off the miles, and was very happy with myself.

total run: 13.0 miles/1:54:39/8:49 avg pace

so on those days when you don't want to get out there or don't want to get speedwork done, just get out there and do something. no matter what something is better than nothing.